Yahoo said on Thursday it was freezing employee pay as it worked to curtail costs and improve the pioneering Internet firm’s fortunes.
The news came five days before Yahoo was expected to announce its earnings for the final quarter of last year.
“The executive team decided that providing annual salary increases would not be in the best interests of the company or shareholders,” Yahoo spokeswoman Kim Rubey said.
Some analysts were predicting that newly-appointed chief executive Carol Bartz would shake-up Yahoo.
Veteran Silicon Valley executive Bartz took over the helm of Yahoo last week, vowing to revive the ailing Internet giant and calling on critics to give it room to breathe.
Bartz, 60, replaces Yahoo founder Jerry Yang (楊致遠), who stepped down on Nov. 18 after a rocky tenure as chief executive of the Sunnyvale, California, firm that lasted a little over a year.
Yahoo has been outshined by Internet-search star Google and stumbling in the wake of a failed courtship with Microsoft, which offered last year to buy Yahoo for nearly US$47 billion. Yang rejected Microsoft’s US$33-a-share takeover bid.
Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said on Thursday that the US software giant remained interested in a search business partnership with Yahoo and welcomed the appointment of Bartz.
“I’ve been quite public about the fact that there are advantages for advertisers and consumers, for Microsoft and for Yahoo through a search partnership, and we’d like to do one,” Ballmer said. “I know Carol Bartz well from Autodesk days, and I like to see her at the helm of Yahoo. If it’s appropriate I’m sure we’ll have the right discussions.”
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
COORDINATION, ASSURANCE: Separately, representatives reintroduced a bill that asks the state department to review guidelines on how the US engages with Taiwan US senators on Tuesday introduced the Taiwan travel and tourism coordination act, which they said would bolster bilateral travel and cooperation. The bill, proposed by US senators Marsha Blackburn and Brian Schatz, seeks to establish “robust security screenings for those traveling to the US from Asia, open new markets for American industry, and strengthen the economic partnership between the US and Taiwan,” they said in a statement. “Travel and tourism play a crucial role in a nation’s economic security,” but Taiwan faces “pressure and coercion from the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]” in this sector, the statement said. As Taiwan is a “vital trading
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