MillionFace

Some more updates from Seattle Times

” The Yahoo shareholders who spoke at the company’s meeting in San Jose today were not particularly interested in raking the company’s board of directors over the coals for its handling of Microsoft’s acquisition offer. In fact, several who spoke praised the board and were glad that it held off Microsoft. In the quote of the day, one man, who said he owns 1,200 shares, along with his wife, described Microsoft as “a corporation-destroying, over-the-hill, green tentacled octopus from Redmond.” Zing.

There was no announcement of the outcome of the vote for the board of directors — meaning no indication of the number of shareholders who expressed their discontent with the board by withholding votes.

Chairman Roy Bostock went back through the entire Microsoft acquisition saga from Yahoo’s point of view. His version of events elicited a one-line statement from Microsoft before the Yahoo meeting concluded”

I am dying to hear the outcome, meanwhile Jim Goldman is providing updates at CNBC. Here are excerpts

2:10 pm EST: Jerry Yang stayed on message, reiterating the strategy, in broad brush strokes, that the company has been implementing since the end of last year.

“Yahoo is a great brand, well recognized around the world,” he proclaimed. The company is focused on “driving relevance,” good for both users and advertisers.

Yahoo, says Yang, “attracts a huge number of users…500 million users a month…Number 1 or 2″ in every major category used to measure net influence and success.

He says Yahoo is unique as a platform, that “no other company… has this collection of assets,” that he and his management team “remain very excited to transform” the company.

1:52 pm EST: As soon as Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock took the microphone at today’s shareholder meeting, he immediately went on the offensive, responding to a shareholder who requested that Yahoo execs fill out timesheets to show just how much they’re actually working, he said he’d be more than happy to.

He also said, “A great deal of misinformation, a great deal of misunderstanding” about the company, its strategy and its executives.

He said, there’s been “tremendous forward progress by the company since the middle of ‘07″ when Jerry Yang succeeded Terry Semel as the company’s CEO.

On negotiations with Microsoft, he said, “The board controlled the process in dealing with Microsoft from the beginning… We called the shots… Our number one priority was maximizing shareholder value.”

On the offer confusion over what Microsoft was offering: “Microsoft’s initial $31 bid was the only written proposal ever received by the company…

“In an offhand comment, (Microsoft said to one of our executives), ‘There may be a few more dollars on the table. It was never explicitly communicated to the board, and never communicated in writing.” On the partnership with Google

“After Microsoft withdrew the offer, and only after they withdrew the offer, we entered into a deal with Google.”

On Carl Icahn, “He’s a smart guy, and despite some of the things written about him…a good guy.”

“Needless to say, the last six months have been full of twists and turns,” but Bostock wants shareholders to focus on what he calls an ambitious plan and “one hell of a performance by this management team” especially in light of Yahoo’s decision not to change guidance for the remainder of 2008.