Yahoo named Scott Thompson, president of PayPal, as its new CEO, Kara Swisher reports at All Things Digital. Thompson, whose name wasn’t among those reportedly being considered, has been running eBay’s online payments business since 2008.
Yahoo fired CEO Carol Bartz in September and, though it was considering buyout offers, its board was reported to be aggressively looking for a new leader. The company’s been trying to strike a deal to sell back its large stakes in China’s Alibaba and Yahoo! Japan, though Alibaba is still trying to work out a deal to buy Yahoo itself.
Meanwhile…
Meanwhile, Research in Motion is preparing to ditch its co-CEOs as co-chairmen of the board, the Canadian newspaper Financial Post reports. RIM’s stock price rose Tuesday in Toronto and New York on reports that Barbara Stymiest, an independent director who joined RIM’s board in 2007, will take the helm, ousting co-founders Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie.
Intense pressure from shareholders is reported to be behind the shuffle, though Reuters Canada says some analysts question whether Stymiest will bring the level of change to the organization that they expect.
RIM continues to lose market share in the United States, falling to 6.5 percent in smartphones and 16.6 percent in operating systems, though it remains No. 3 behind iOS and Android. But continued delays in bringing new models to market don’t bode well. No wonder grim predictions abound for the company for 2012.
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