Yahoo sheds 2,000 jobs

YAHOO   FACEBOOK   LAYOFF

Global - Yahoo has confirmed that it would begin laying off roughly 2,000 employees as part of an effort to build a company that is "smaller, nimbler, more profitable and better equipped to innovate".

"Our goal is to get back to our core purpose - putting our users and advertisers first - and we are moving aggressively to achieve that goal,"said Yahoo's CEO Scott Thompson.

According to an email Thompson sent employees that has been obtained by several media outlets, the idea is to focus Yahoo around three core businesses: core media and communication, platforms and data.

Yahoo is projecting the layoffs will save the company US$375 million after all affected employees are transitioned, but it will take a US$125 million to $145 million pretax hit in its second quarter earnings as a result of the severance packages it will be doling out.

The layoffs are the latest in a series of lowlights to occur since Thompson took over as CEO three months ago. Within weeks of announcing Thompson's hiring, company co-founder Jerry Yang resigned from Yahoo's board. Soon afterward, four more board members, including chairman Roy Bostock, declared they would not seek re-election.

While the board battle has stretched on, Yahoo has also initiated a patent war with Facebook.

Last month Yahoo filed a lawsuit against the social network, claiming that Facebook has infringed on 10 patents owned by Yahoo related to online advertising, content personalization, user interactions and privacy. Many in the media and technology industries have lambasted Yahoo for what one former Yahoo employee termed "litigation as a business model."

Yesterday Facebook shot back with a lawsuit of its own. According to a copy of the counterclaim TechCrunch has posted online, Facebook is claiming that Yahoo has infringed on 10 of Facebook's patents related to online advertising, content personalization and privacy.

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