San Francisco, May 14: After watching online search engine leader Google Inc dominate business headlines for weeks, Yahoo! Inc used a series of executive presentations to remind analysts the company is an internet powerhouse determined to grow even bigger. A few minutes after the Frank Sinatra song "the best is yet to come" served as a musical prelude, Yahoo CEO Terry Semel set the self-assured tone of the daylong meeting by insisting the Sunnyvale, California-based company feeds on competitive threats.
Without mentioning names, Semel made veiled references to longtime rivals Microsoft corporation and AOL, as well as "one or two" upcoming companies.
After acknowledging that these companies have become major players in some Internet segments, Semel cautioned Yahoo's foes.
"My advice is to beware," Semel said yesterday. "All we want to do is win. It's the only thing that excites us."
Other Yahoo executives exuded the same sort of confidence on a day when the company raised one of its major long-term goals from 10 million subscribers to 15 million subscribers who pay for internet access, online matchmaking, premium e-mail and other special services. The company didn't set a deadline for hitting the new target. As of March, Yahoo had 5.8 million subscribers, up from 600,000 two years earlier.
Bureau Report