Tech News

Yahoo Officially Becomes a Verizon Company

http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2017/06/13/mayer_wide-432d49a77d8338654e412b51760fb31fc13be9a0-s800-c85.jpg
Yahoo Officially Becomes a Verizon Company
Bernadine Racoma

Verizon now officially owns Yahoo, after the acquisition deal was signed three days ago. The deal was worth $4.5 billion. Former CEO, Marissa Mayer, resigned. She received $23 million as severance pay, not a bad deal despite losing her job.

With the acquisition, Verizon now owns all the Yahoo-owned websites. That includes the mother ship company, and AOL assets comprising about 50 media brands. They will all be under a subsidiary named Oath. Under its employment will be about one billion people located worldwide. Tim Armstrong will move from being AOL’s CEO to Oath head.

Some of the other brands include HuffPost, TechCrunch, Makers, Engadget, #BuiltbyGirls, tumblr., Flickr, RYOT, kanvas, Build, Autoblog, Alto, Convertro, movie|fone and Polyvore. AOL, Verizon Digital Media Services, and 1 by AOL will also be under the Oath umbrella. Verizon will have access to one billion Yahoo consumers.

What The Deal Means to Yahoo

In recent years, Yahoo was beset by administrative and business problems in its attempt to have another leash on life. The attempts to redefine itself proved costly for the company, and it eventually ended in the sale.

With the deal, the independent life of Yahoo ends. As one of the iconic Internet brands, it’s one of the oldest as well. Yahoo was a favorite search engine and it set the pace. But that was before other entrepreneurs, such as Google, came along and surpassed the former trendsetter.

What happened to this internet giant is not unique. In the online content and media world, consolidations happen. It’s part of the process of larger companies looking for ways to satisfy the needs of multiple audiences, mainly due to economic reasons – bigger advertising revenue – to face stiff competition from online media giants such as Facebook and Google.

AOL’s Position

In a statement from Verizon president of Media and Telematics, Marni Walden said the acquisition is a very important step in their plan to boost the global presence of Verizon. The company plans to provide more exciting ways to provide global audiences with digital media content, from 5G to Internet of Things (IoT), virtual reality (VR) to artificial intelligence (AI).

It was reported a week ago that there would be staff reduction at Yahoo after the sale. About 15 percent of the staff, mostly in sales and marketing and operations will be cut. However, the final word regarding this has not been announced yet.

The announcement of Marissa Mayer’s resignation was included in the press statement from Verizon. What’s not announced is who else among the senior officers will be leaving. Many speculate that Yahoo CISO Bob Lord will also be out. He was the head of the security operations when the company suffered massive breaches in 2013 and early 2014. This led to Verizon lowering its offer price for the company.

Members of the Yahoo board, who have already resigned, aside from Marissa Mayer, include Maynard Webb, Jr., Jeffrey Smith, Jane Shaw, Richard Hill, Eddy Hartenstein and David Filo.

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