When Carol Bartz came on board Yahoo (NASDAQ: YHOO ) a few years ago, she was
supposed to bring discipline to the company and craft a sustainable growth
strategy. Well, it turned out to be a disaster, and as of Wednesday, Bartz is
out of a job. Interestingly enough, the shares of Yahoo spiked 5% on the news.
Now the buzz is that Yahoo will ultimately be sold off. No doubt, Bartz's
failure is far from the exception in the tech industry. If anything, there are
many examples of CEOs that should get the boot. Who are some of the notable
ones? Let's take a look: Cisco Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO ) has been a perennial
laggard for shareholders. The 10-year-return on CSCO stock is a dismal 12% and
underperforms the broader market. The company's CEO, John Chambers (pictured
above), has been at the helm since 1995. And from the start, he was aggressive
with acquisitions. It was a smart way to maintain an innovation edge as well as
leverage Cisco's huge distribution footprint. The problem is the company has
many disparate businesses, with little cohesion. More troubling, Cisco also is
having issues with its router business, which is a critical source of cash
flows. Low-cost Chinese rivals are also making a dent in Ciscos business. Dell
Dell (NASDAQ: DELL ) is really a tale of two CEOs. From 1984 to 2004, Michael
Dell was a visionary. He created a build-to-order platform that allowed for lots
of growth and cash flows. But since Michael returned in 2007, things have been
terrible. The company has paid steep prices for software and storage companies.
At the same time, it has missed some of the latest trends in tech, especially
the surge in tablets. With about two-thirds of revenues coming from the PC
business, it is difficult to see how Dell will get much traction. It needs new
blood in the corner office to find a new way forward. Research In Motion With
Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM ), you have a two-fer. That is, RIMM has
co-CEOs: Michael Lazaridis and James Balsillie. It's been double trouble at
RIMM lately. So far this year, the company's shares are off 45%. In fact, the
price-to-earnings ratio is only 5. Then again, the onslaught of Apple (NASDAQ:
AAPL ) is likely to continue to tear into RIMM's business. At the same time,
there will be tremendous pressure from Android operators. So getting rid of the
co-CEOs probably is a good idea just to clean house and start fresh. But even
with this, it is hard to figure out a strategy that can work. Hey, just look at
Nokia (NYSE: NOK ). Bringing on a new CEO has made little difference in this
companys fortunes. AOL It's hard to believe AOL (NYSE: AOL ) was once a tech
darling. But since the dot-com crash, it has been in a grueling death spiral.
Has anything really worked for this company? As InvestorPlace.com's Jonathan
Berr indicated this week , AOL actually is worse than Yahoo. Simply put, the
company's CEO, Tim Armstrong, can't devise a strategy to boost traffic and
revenues. This is the case despite some expensive acquisitions, such as for
Huffington Post and TechCrunch . Armstrong also is spending huge sums for its
local content service, Patch. To top it off, Facebook is eating AOL's lunch.
Not good for Armstrongs future prospects. Tom Taulli is the author of various
books, including "All About Commodities." He does not own a position in any
of the stocks named here.
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