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The much waited shareholders meeting came up and was pretty cold towards the Yahoo board, especially CEO, Roy Bostock. The meeting that had created so much of a hype didn’t turn out to be a show of fireworks as Icahn had previously compromised, winning his way  into the board and  then  pulled off it a day before. But there was enough discontent with the board, despite the shareholders re-electing every member in a hope to see things turn positive for Yahoo in the future.

The meeting finally came in to make news after all the chaos created by the Microsoft’ attempting to break ice with Yahoo, crying over the Yahoo/Google deal before Microsoft finally called it ‘done’. Icahn bolting Yang and Yang slashing in at both Icahn and Microsoft. The deal did end up on a sorry note when Yahoo turned down Microsoft’s offer at a plan to shuffle the board up.

Stephen Shankland reported live on the meeting. The CEO highlighted the plans that have been made for the current year, terming it to be a year of Investment:

We agreed at that point that 2008 would be an investment year. At every step in that process, the No. 1 priority was to maximize shareholder value.

Maximizing the shareholder value? If that were so planned why did Yahoo reject the Microsoft deal that could have made the current stock value jump over $10 a share (when there stocks showed a fall for all they did)? I guess that was one reason why Bostock immediately shifted gears to defensive stating:

At no point did the board or management in any way, despite rumors and speculation, ever resist Microsoft’s proposal. There was never any doubt…that the board was open to a deal with Microsoft and for search only if it made sense, but ultimately, there was never a compelling offer put on the table.

There had been reports of Yahoo and Yang showing interest in a deal with Microsoft but termed that Microsoft wasn’t serious about such a deal and all it wanted was a total buy out. Over all the speech made by Bostock appeared more like he was begging for a favor on behalf of the board and himself, carving in a soft spot in the hearts.

Yang as he began his speech (that he must have been preparing for long) was as usual optimistic about Yahoo, starting off at how the internet could grow into the hub of advertising with the current usage at the present population estimated at 1.2 billion. He said:

The Internet is the only industry that’s growing in advertising revenue. We believe there’s significant growth in the next three years, it’s global, and it’s a business Yahoo is very well positioned to be in.

There was enough to say by every one of the board members as Decker came up explaining why the deal wit Google could improve Yahoo’s search. She also highlighted as how Yahoo Buzz has displaced Digg as the major content generator along with the latest SearchMonkey announcement; turning Yelp, Yahoo! Local and LinkedIn ‘default-on’.

Eight hundred million users potentially now can access our mobile services. Ultimately, mobile we think will be the leading starting point on the Web, based on how the world is evolving outside the U.S.

Now, when we have a countless kinds of handsets, networks along with various other problems like business obstacles etc, going mobile creates quite a lot of problems for those planning to go mobile and Decker wasn’t able to out pretty vocal given her statement regarding it being the potential market.

From what I can make out of the entire procession of the shareholders meeting, one thing stands out very prominently and that is; there are still a lot of clouds blocking light reaching Yahoo. The company has got big plans but along with that there appears to be plenty of ‘shaken confidence’ within the board members, they perhaps know that hopeful words aren’t you need to satisfy people who have put their money in you, it’s success that needs to show itself in form of a higher return for investors.

As for Yahoo, they just have to work things around and grab any opportunity (and make it when it doesn’t appear) that can shoot them back into the race it once led.