Yahoo's Exec Cleanup Continues: Top Mobile Exec Marco Boerries Leaves
This story was written by Rafat Ali.
This had been expected for a while: Marco Boerries, the EVP for Connected Devices division at Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) for four years, and the head of its mobile efforts, is leaving the company, according to Kara. The news was in an internal e-mail sent to staff on Tuesday. Boerries came to the company in 2005 with the acquisition of VerdiSoft. He also had earlier sold another software company to Sun Microsystems (JAVA) in 1999.
Boerries has more recently been splitting his time between Northern California and Hamburg, where his family is, and that has contributed to his decision as well, the story says. From his e-mail he sent to employees: "Most of you know about my personal situation, the 'living in 2 continents' and the importance of my family to me. I cannot reconcile these personal needs, my future plans and ambitions and Yahoo! anymore. And that's why it is time to say good bye."
At Mobile World Congress earlier this month, Boerries gave a keynote, his last as part of the company, and relaunched the company's mobile efforts yet again, its third in as many years. This time it launched "Yahoo Mobile", which rolled OneSearch, OneConnect, and OnePlace products as well as other features such as Yahoo Maps, into a more convenient package than its previous attempt with Yahoo Go. No word yet on how this will effect the mobile division, though it went through a mini-reorg last September as well. Yahoo doesn't have a device of its own, compared to say its mobile rivals in Google (NSDQ: GOOG) (through Android) and Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) (through iPhone), and that has placed it at a bit of disadvantage when it comes to mobile applications. To be fair, it has made the right noises in the mobile search and mobile advertising fields for the last two years, though monetization has been a low priority.
This continues the re-jiggering the Yahoo's senior exec ranks as new CEO Carol Bartz continues to make her mark and reorganize the company.
By Rafat Ali