Think Blackberry is a smartphone? Not according to Marissa Mayer.

[dmapr]

Watch Marissa Mayer Destroy Research In Motion In 23 Words (YHOO, RIMM) - SFGate

During an interview with Fortune's Patricia Sellers last night, Mayer explained:

"We literally are moving the company from BlackBerrys to smartphones. One of the really important things for Yahoo's strategy moving forward is mobile."

Read more: Watch Marissa Mayer Destroy Research In Motion In 23 Words (YHOO, RIMM) - SFGate

[Charlyee]

Watch Marissa Mayer Destroy Research In Motion In 23 Words (YHOO, RIMM) - SFGate

Oh wow, that's scary.

[RadioRaiders]

Yea, BlackBerry should really get some apps and join the smartphone scene. Wait, what? Seriously, that is scary. This lady is CEO of a tech company, Yahoo? Maybe she should use a search engine, like Google, and find out what a smartphone is and what company pioneered it.

[dmapr]

Yea, BlackBerry should really get some apps and join the smartphone scene. Wait, what? Seriously, that is scary. This lady is CEO of a tech company, Yahoo? Maybe she should use a search engine, like Google, and find out what a smartphone is and what company pioneered it.

Wouldn't the answer be "the same company that decided to rest on its laurels and pissed away the market share"?.

[RadioRaiders]

Wouldn't the answer be "the same company that decided to rest on its laurels and pissed away the market share"?.

Are you talking about BlackBerry or Yahoo?

[dmapr]

Yahoo only satisfies one of the criteria — the resting on the laurels. Can't piss away what you don't have

[RadioRaiders]

Yahoo only satisfies one of the criteria — the resting on the laurels. Can't piss away what you don't have

At the end of the 90's Yahoo was pretty much the dominant search engine.. and had a large % of e-mail users. Google showed up in the early 2000's and robbed them of both. So they did fall asleep at the wheel and pissed away their market share.
Actually, what is Yahoo's mission statement? When searching the internet, nobody says "Let me Yahoo that", and I don't really know many people who still use Yahoo e-mail accounts. What does Yahoo do to stay relevant in today's tech world? For them to bash BlackBerry as being outdated kind of has a "pot-kettle-black" thing going on

[dmapr]

Have to admit, I went straight from Infoseek & Altavista to Google, bypassing Yahoo. Yahoo tried its hand at online auctions, but lost out to eBay without really getting of the ground. josephd & I both use Yahoo email, but that's beside the point. The difference to me is Blackberry had a huge market share of something that was making them money (I bet back in the late 90s Yahoo search engine was not making Yahoo any money). Also, IIRC Google was sort of an overnight sensation, it has taken the world by storm. iPhone came out in 2007, Android followed in 2008. They were eating away at Blackberry market share for several years -- all the while Blackberry stubbornly refused to change their offerings much. IMHO, Yahoo can claim being blindsided while Blackberry was just being blind and in denial