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Here’s the latest action:

IPhone glitches may be fixed in September — A chip in the iPhone is being blamed for dropped calls and choppy web reception, according to BusinessWeek. The problems will hopefully be fixed next month with a software upgrade.

Netflix suffers shipping and distribution outage — The outage affects one-third of the movie rental service’s 8.4 million customers. Executives say they’re trying to figure out an appropriate refund or credit.

Open source movement scores court victory — A federal appeals court ruled that even if a software programmer gives away their code, they can still dictate how that code is distributed. The decision bolsters one of the key principles behind open source software and overturns a ruling that many open source licenses are too broad to carry legal weight.

Icahn allies appointed to Yahoo’s board of directors — The appointment of Frank Biondi, Jr. and John H. Chapple is part of the deal struck between Yahoo and investor Carl Icahn, who tried to swing the board his way after acquisition talks with Microsoft fell apart.

Analyst: The strengthening dollar will hurt tech companies — That’s because a weak dollar boosts the earnings of companies that sell their goods overseas in foreign currencies, but report their profits in U.S. dollars, says Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi.

Confirmed: Lulu has acquired book search engine uGenie — The rumor started earlier this month after self-publishing company Lulu announced a partnership with uGenie, which is backed by Sierra Ventures and BlueRun Ventures. Now we have confirmation that the deal is real, although the price was not disclosed. UGenie’s founders have reportedly joined the Lulu team.

Judge keeps gag order intact in subway hacking case — A federal judge upheld the order that prevented MIT students from giving a presentation at DefCon on their research into security vulnerabilities in the Boston subway system.

AMD launches four new processors for the business server market — The processors are triple-core and quad-core.

In what sounds more like a Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie date than a multi-billion dollar company’s shareholder meeting, Carl Icahn says he won’t show up so that it doesn’t turn into “a media event.” I can see it now, paparazzi perched in trees with zoom lenses, screaming fangirls. Mr. Icahn, you’re on Yahoo’s board of directors now, shouldn’t you be there?

The meeting takes place tomorrow, but Icahn outlined his feelings on it today in a blog post. Despite gushing over each other ten days ago when it was announced that Icahn would join Yahoo’s board and give up on his bid for a hostile takeover, Icahn now doesn’t seem exactly thrilled with the partnership. As he explains the move today, it seems to be merely a tactical maneuver. He realized he didn’t have the support required to win the majority of Yahoo’s directorships, so he cut a deal rather than risk being a vocal, but overruled minority.

We of course all pretty much knew that, but should Icahn really be saying that the day before what will arguably be Yahoo’s most important shareholder meeting ever?

As part of his deal with Yahoo, Icahn will get a say in any offer presented to Yahoo — or as Icahn himself puts it, “Carl Icahn will be a member of that committee.” (What is it about Yahoo that drives others to start speaking in third person?) Another part of the deal included the possibility that he could get up to two other members of his alternative board slate elected with him. Of course, Icahn won’t be there tomorrow to see if that goes through.

Icahn goes on in his post to say that he recently met with Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang and chairman Roy Bostock, and that he still disagrees with them “on many points.” The first of those may be writing subversive blog posts about Yahoo.

Here’s the latest action:

Yahoo has a bad day, but it could have been much worse — The Internet giant announced its earnings today and fell short of expectations, but only by about a penny-a-share. Net income was down 19 percent from the same quarter last year. Still, considering it no longer has a Carl Icahn-led hostile takeover to worry about, the company can — and more importantly, will live with these numbers.

Icahn’s wild weekend — While Yahoo was busy breathing a sigh of relief now that the Icahn takeover “distraction” (as Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang called it on the earnings call today) is behind them, Icahn got back to writing about Yahoo on his blog. His new post is entitled “How I Spent My Weekend” — no, really. He’ll be here all week folks, try the veal.

Shuffle at the top of Etsy — The online marketplace for handmade things has announced that Maria Thomas, its former chief operating officer, will now be its chief executive. Founder Rob Kalin will now be the chief creative officer. It also announced Chad Dickerson as its new chief technology officer. Dickerson leaves his job as the head of the Yahoo Brickhouse special projects group. Yes, that’s another Yahoo exec who is leaving.

Sugar ends its relationship with NBC — The female-oriented blog network has decided to take charge of its own advertising. Too bad that Lauren Zalaznick, president of Women and Lifestyle Entertainment networks for NBC Universal, just played up its partnership with Sugar in announcing the BlogHer deal last week.

GigaOM scoops up a mobile blog — jkOnTheRun joins the Giga Omni Media network of blogs. Read about it from Om Malik himself.

MySpace announces support of OpenID — If you have an account with MySpace you can now use it to login to any other site supporting OpenID.

Ryan Block leaves Engadget — The editor of the popular gadget blog (left) is leaving to start an undisclosed new project with another former Engadget editor, Peter Rojas.

Google walking directions — In the spirit of summer, Google now allows you to get directions tailored for those who may not want to drive or take public transportation to a destination.

Joost goes to China — Maybe it’ll fare better there than it has in the U.S. NewTeeVee has the details.

Twitter acknowledges spam issue — The micro-messaging service is fully aware that marketers and others are signing up for accounts and mass-friending people. It does not like that, as it writes in its blog.

There will be no fireworks on display at the Yahoo shareholder meeting on August 1. Or at least, they won’t be as bright. Billionaire investor Carl Icahn has reached an agreement with Yahoo to drop his pursuit of a hostile takeover of the company. In return, Icahn will get a seat of his own on Yahoo’s board of directors as well as the potential for two other seats for the board replacement members he had chosen.

Yahoo and Icahn negotiated this settlement over the weekend to avoid a nasty proxy fight at the shareholder meeting that would have seen Icahn try to replace Yahoo’s entire board of directors — including chief executive Jerry Yang — with people of his own choosing. Icahn owns over 68 million shares of Yahoo stock, right around 5 percent of the company.

Here are the key quotes from the press release:

“We are gratified to have reached this agreement, which serves the best interests of all Yahoo! stockholders,” said Yahoo! Chairman Roy Bostock. “We look forward to working productively with Carl and the new members of the Board on continuing to improve the Company’s performance and enhancing stockholder value. Yahoo! is a world-class company with an extremely bright future, and collaborating together, I believe we can help the Company achieve its ambitious goals.”

“This agreement will not only allow Yahoo! to put the distraction of the proxy contest behind us, it will allow the Company to continue pursuing its strategy of being the starting point for Internet users and a must buy for advertisers,” said Yahoo! Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Jerry Yang. “No other company in the Internet space has our unique combination of global brand, talented employees, innovative technologies and exceptional assets, attributes that will help us take advantage of the large and growing opportunity ahead of us. I look forward to working together with our new colleagues on the Board to make that happen.”

Mr. Icahn said, “I am very pleased that this settlement will allow me to work in partnership with Yahoo!’s Board and management team to help the Company achieve its full potential. While I continue to believe that the sale of the whole Company or the sale of its Search business in the right transaction must be given full consideration, I share the view that Yahoo!’s valuable collection of assets positions it well to continue expanding its online leadership and enhancing returns to stockholders. I believe this is a good outcome and that we will have a strong working relationship going forward. Additionally, I am happy that the board has agreed in the settlement agreement that any meaningful transaction, including the strategy in dealing with that transaction, will be fully discussed with the entire board before any final decision is made.”

As you can see, Icahn is still all about a transaction. So while there may be peace for now, don’t expect this saga to be truly over until Yahoo sells either its search business or the entire company. The leading contender in both regards remains, of course, Microsoft.

Yahoo shares are down 3 percent today on news of the Icahn/Yahoo truce.

To make room for Icahn and the two new board members, Yahoo will expand its board from 9 members to 11. All of the current board members will stand for re-election (with Icahn’s backing) except Robert Kotick, who is stepping down. Kotick is the chief executive of the newly merged Activision Blizzard gaming company.

With each passing day the Microsoft/Yahoo/Icahn fiasco becomes less like a business deal and more like a televsion sitcom. But a bad one. With characters you don’t like. As such, I’ll keep this brief.

Microsoft finally got around to issuing a response to the statement Yahoo released on Saturday night saying it was rejecting what it felt was a unfair joint offer from Microsoft and billionaire investor Carl Icahn. Microsoft claims that Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock was being disingenuous in some of his claims that were presented in Yahoo’s statement — including the supposed key point that Yahoo’s board of directors and its chief executive Jerry Yang would have been replaced under such a deal. Microsoft claims that such an arrangement was never part of the proposal.

Meanwhile, sources close to Carl Icahn supposedly are saying that it was in fact part of the deal, reports Silicon Alley Insider. He said/he said/he said.

Microsoft also makes it sound like Yahoo came to them pleading for a new deal with the help of Icahn and so the software giant valiantly set its bruised ego aside and came up with a new proposal for Yahoo’s search business. How stoic.

Bored yet? You should read the actual Microsoft release. Not only is it humorously entitled “Microsoft Sets the Record Straight,” but the release features the word “Microsoft” 19 times. That’s in 51 total sentences. It’s downright Bob Dole-ian.

Everyone should just take a few days, let their egos cool down and get this deal done. We all know it’s coming.

[photo: Bob Dole]

I’m not sure which classic rock song best describes the latest in the Microsoft / Yahoo battle: “The Song Remains the Same” or “Saturday Night’s All Right (For Fighting)”? Both apply in their own right as yes, Yahoo has rejected yet another proposal by Microsoft, and in doing so no doubt ticked off both the software giant and billionaire investor Carl Icahn yet again.

The latest proposal sent to Yahoo on Friday had a 24-hour time limit to accept. It would have had Microsoft take over Yahoo’s search business while putting a new board of directors, as chosen by Icahn, in place to run the rest of the company.

It’s hardly surprising that Yahoo would reject such an offer, but the company is also running out of time. Its stockholder meeting takes place on August 1. That is when Icahn will attempt to forcefully put his board in place and thus, seize control of the company.

The company knows this and perhaps that is why it bluntly states that it counter-offered Microsoft the option to buy the entire company for $33-a-share or enter re-negotiations to just buy its search business. It claims Microsoft rejected both offers.

Yahoo also name drops its new search advertising partner (and major Microsoft rival), Google, quite prominently. Point number one of why Yahoo rejected this latest deal reads:

1. Yahoo!’s existing business plus its recently signed commercial agreement with Google has superior financial value and less complexity and risk than the Microsoft/Icahn proposal.

Yahoo also takes a portion of its press release to call out Icahn for being contradictory. It quotes him as saying previously that Yahoo selling its only search business to Microsoft would be “crazy.” Now he is a major force in trying to make such a deal happen.

Oh, if only Icahn could blog about this. (He can’t under SEC rules until all this mess is settled.)

I continue to believe that one way or another, this deal is going to happen. Microsoft simply has no other real options if it is serious about gaining in the search business, while Yahoo simply looks like it has no other options — period.

The two key cogs pushing for a Yahoo takeover this year have been software giant Microsoft and billionaire investor Carl Icahn. Even though both wanted the same thing, their timing was always just a bit off. Now the two are teaming up. Yahoo is in trouble.

It’s like the childhood game of Red Rover; Microsoft and Icahn are linking arms and calling for Yahoo to come to their side. But Yahoo likely isn’t strong enough at this point to break the chain.

Icahn issued an open letter to the shareholders this morning explaining how he and Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer now see eye-to-eye on what must be done with Yahoo. Microsoft issued a statement five minutes later confirming this stance — which is:

We confirm, however, that after the shareholder election Microsoft would be interested in discussing with a new board a major transaction with Yahoo!, such as either a transaction to purchase the “Search” function with large financial guarantees or, in the alternative, purchasing the whole company.

So, Icahn will take out Yahoo’s legs and then Microsoft will go in for the kill.

While Microsoft working with Icahn has seemed more or less inevitable since May, now that it’s in writing, Yahoo finds itself even further backed into a corner. As such, it should be no surprise that Yahoo spent the July 4 weekend meeting with advisers about alternative ideas, according to the Times Online. The most likely of these alternative ideas is a deal with Time Warner that would merge Yahoo and AOL.

Yahoo also issued its own statement a couple hours after Icahn’s and Microsoft’s this morning. The gist? It remains “open” to any proposal by Microsoft to take over the company but wants a bid immediately (read: While the current board is in place). With only three weeks left before the August 1 Yahoo shareholder meeting, that is unlikely to happen.

Instead, Microsoft will probably sit back and wait for Icahn to replace Yahoo’s board at that meeting with his own hand-picked group. Expect Microsoft to then make a proposal to buy Yahoo shortly thereafter. Yahoo, naturally warns that this is a bad idea for the shareholders.

With the stock price up over 10 percent on this news today. I’m not so sure they agree.

[photo: flickr/maxintosh]

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is really turning into a blogger.

A lot of bloggers when they go a few days without writing chime in to give an excuse for the lack of updates. I do it on my personal blog too. And today we got such a post from Carl Icahn.

Of course, Icahn’s excuse is a bit more sexy than your typical “I’m busy” or “I’m moving” post. Icahn really only wants to write about one thing: Yahoo’s absurdness. However, he cannot write on it due to SEC regulations. He is, after all, attempting to launch a hostile takeover the company.

Says Icahn:

“Many of you have been asking me about Yahoo. Please remember I am in the middle of a proxy fight. A proxy fight involves a complicated process of SEC approvals, federal securities laws, filing requirements and a great deal of time and money.”

Fine. We’ll let you slide this time Carl. But could you at least post a YouTube video or Flickr pic from time to time or something?

Icahn does promise that he will give his views shortly however. He is expected to let his intentions for his proxy fight be known by July 4, according to CNET.

Like any good blogger, Icahn ends his latest post by self-promoting his own RSS feed and letting his readers know to “stay tuned.”

Yes, the rumors are true. Carl Icahn has launched a blog. If this week is any indication, he plans to use it heavily to bloviate on topics near and dear to his heart — namely his thoughts on Yahoo.

Icahn launched a hostile takeover effort of the Internet giant after it rebuffed Microsoft’s buyout proposal. Icahn felt Yahoo’s actions were not in the best interests of its shareholders, of which he is now of the of the largest, and hopes to negotiate a deal with Microsoft if he is successful.

“Absurd” is an important word for Icahn. He uses it in the title of no less than three posts this week. All of them about Yahoo.

It seems pretty clear to me from these posts that Icahn thinks he is Gordon Gekko, Michael Douglas’ corporate raider character from the 1987 film Wall Street. Unfortunately, none of his rants are nearly as good as Gekko’s “Greed is good” speech given at the board meeting of Teldar Paper.

Instead, Icahn finds himself quoting Winston Churchill or better yet, himself, all too often.

Still, it’s an interesting look into the mind of a very powerful man. Check it out, and if you like it, follow Icahn’s advice and “please subscribe.”

No word on when he’ll start doing posts with LOLcat pictures…

[photo: 20th Centure Fox]

When Microsoft made a bid to buy Yahoo on February 1, the Internet company’s stock was at $19.18 a share. Microsoft’s offer of $31 a share, a 62 percent premium, caused Yahoo’ stock to soar. It shot past $28 a share and soon was hovering around the $30 a share mark — a level it hadn’t been at for months.

It was a nice little vacation in respectable stock heaven, but now reality is setting in once again.

Following Yahoo formally shutting the door on a deal with Microsoft, and its subsequent alliance with Google, the stock is tanking. It’s price chart looks like the Mariana Trench (see the chart below) as it rapidly descends into the lower $20s.

Yahoo, at least, seems to have gotten what it wanted, a deal with a company other than Microsoft that will bring it quite a bit of cash quickly. So why are investors disagreeing in droves?

Well, there is still a perception that the Google deal, while attractive short term, is a “cutting off your nose to spite your face” situation long term. Sure, Google will be paying Yahoo money in exchange for placing ads on its search results, but such a deal also insures that Yahoo is never going to return to the prominent position it once held on the Internet.

Of course, given Google’s growing position of power and Microsoft bottomless pocket book, that was unlikely to happen anyway.

But there is also a real fear that this deal to “save Yahoo” could end in a heartbeat. No deal is complete without escape clauses, and this one has some significant ones.

Google is free to walk away from the pact if any third part replaces Yahoo’s board in either of its next two shareholder meetings. While of course this list includes Microsoft, it also includes one Carl Icahn. A man who has lost a lot of money over the past few days thanks to his massive buy-up of Yahoo stock over the past several weeks.

As of this morning, word was that Icahn’s hostile takeover plan of Yahoo was still a go. Investors, seeing the stock plummeting may be even more welcome to such a move now.

Of course this Google deal complicates things a bit more. Yahoo will have to pay Google a quarter of a billion dollars if the agreement is broken due to takeover. But hey, what’s another $250 million when companies out there are willing to spend tens of billions on the company? The bigger deterrent is still Yahoo’s so-called “poison pill” which triggers severance packages in the event of a takeover and adds a couple billion dollars to the deal. Icahn will try to eliminate that if he goes forward with his takeover.

So, did Google just earn itself a quick $250 million? If Yahoo can’t turn its stock price around, that could be the case.

The back and forth between Yahoo and billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who is attempting to take the company over, is now arguably more entertaining than the formal letter wars during the whole Microsoft/Yahoo debacle.

Icahn recently got FTC approval to purchase a huge amount of Yahoo stock, putting him one step closer to a hostile takeover.

This morning, Icahn sent a letter to Yahoo laying out five steps of what he plans to do with the company upon a successful hostile takeover:

• First, I would work to have the board replace your “poison pill” severance plan with an acceptable alternative.
• Second, I intend to ask our new board to hire a talented and experienced CEO (attempting to replicate Google’s success with Eric Schmidt) to replace Jerry Yang and return Jerry to his role as “Chief Yahoo”. Indeed, it was much speculated that Jerry would serve in the CEO role temporarily until a permanent CEO was hired after the board asked Terry Semel to resign.
• Third, I intend to ask our new board to inform Microsoft that unless any alternative transaction can insure a $33 or higher stock price (of which I am skeptical) all talks of alternative transactions are over.
• Fourth, I will ask our new board to offer publicly to sell Yahoo! to Microsoft in a friendly and cooperative transaction.
• Fifth, to the extent Microsoft does not want to make a proposal, I will ask our new board do a deal on search with Google, but only if it contains termination provisions that would in no way impede a subsequent acquisition by Microsoft.

In summary: Icahn would eliminate one of the main deterrences that stopped Microsoft from taking over Yahoo. He would then push Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang aside and replace him with clone of Google chief executive Eric Schmidt. (He would allow Yang to stay with the company as a cheerleader.) With steps three and four, Icahn would then beg Microsoft to come back to the table. And finally, if a Microsoft deal wasn’t immediately possible, he would be okay with the Google/Yahoo search advertising deal back up plan — until Microsoft eventually came around again, at which point he would kick Google to the corner.

This all sounds great except that it relies upon the willing submission of at least a half dozen other parties who would have to do exactly what Icahn wants.

This isn’t a game, but Icahn is almost making it seem like one. It’s like fantasy CEO. Yang isn’t working out so lets replace him with a five-tool chief executive like Schmidt. Come on, we can totally get him, we have a high draft pick.

We saw Yahoo respond this afternoon with a much shorter letter:

Leaving aside Mr. Icahn’s inaccurate interpretation of our retention plan, we again note that he has no credible plan to operate Yahoo!. We believe that Mr. Icahn’s suggestion that we cancel our retention plan would have a destabilizing impact on Yahoo! and would clearly not be in the best interests of our shareholders. Furthermore, his suggestion that we put out a price publicly to see if Microsoft will alter its stated position is ill-advised. As we have stated numerous times publicly and privately, we are shareholders.

In summary: Icahn is crazy.

Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is back making waves for Yahoo again today. He’s now saying that if he is successful in his hostile takeover bid of Yahoo, he will remove its chief executive Jerry Yang, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Icahn believes Yang and Yahoo’s current board dropped the ball with regards to Microsoft’s proposed buyout of the company, which fizzled last month. Icahn also believes Yang and the board never had any intention of accepting a Microsoft offer, and worse, may have taken steps to deter such a deal. He believes this despite public assurances by Yahoo that it was open to listening to all offers and was actively talking with Microsoft.

A couple of reports that have recently come to light do not look too good for Yahoo.

First of all, it appears that the company rejected a $40-a-share offer from Microsoft back in January of 2007. Microsoft, of course, came back a year later with its public $31-a-share offer because Yahoo’s stock fell dramatically over that span.

Another report today suggests that Yahoo actually opposed a search advertising deal with Google prior to Microsoft’s bid, according to eWeek. In fact, the report says that Yahoo rejected the notion just one day before the Microsoft bid.

This is very interesting because the Yahoo/Google agreement was widely seen as a main factor for how Yahoo could possibly get away without selling to Microsoft. It seems odd that Yahoo would be so gung-ho about the deal under the cloud of the Microsoft takeover, but against it just prior to it. The term, “marriage of convenience” comes to mind.

Yahoo board is convening today at its Sunnyvale headquarters. That should be an interesting meeting…

We’ve known that billionaire investor Carl Icahn had been trying to buy massive amounts of Yahoo stock to push ahead with his quest for a hostile takeover of the company. One speed bump in that plan was the Federal Trade Commission, which sometimes frowns upon massive stock purchases as being anti-competitive. That speed bump has been removed. The FTC approved Icahn’s purchase request today.

This puts Icahn squarely in the drivers seat if he wants to go ahead with taking over Yahoo by installing his own replacement board of directors. The question now is: When will this all go down?

Last week, Yahoo delayed its board meeting which had been set for July 3, when one of its board members resigned. The meeting should take place sometime near the end of July now, however no firm date has been set.

In related news, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer and Yahoo chief executive Jerry Yang met for a round of golf last weekend. They are said to have discussed Microsoft’s new desire to buy just Yahoo’s search business. This follows the failure by both sides to get a deal done that would have merged the two companies completely.

It’s probably a good bet that Icahn’s name came up as well.

[photo: Chip East/Bloomberg]

Well that didn’t take long. Barely two weeks after walking away from its proposed deal to buy Yahoo, Microsoft released a statement today that the two sides were back at the negotiating table “in light of developments.” Those developments are billionaire financier Carl Icahn’s hostile actions to replace Yahoo’s board and word that Google and Yahoo are once again talking about extending their search advertising partnership.

Microsoft is not proposing a full takeover of Yahoo at this time, but apparently has a proposal to buy at least part of the Internet giant. Not surprisingly, word is that Microsoft wants to merge its search advertising business with Yahoo’s, thus blocking any potential Google deal to do the same, according to BusinessWeek.

Such a deal would seem to make more sense for both sides on the surface. Microsoft would get what it wants, a bigger piece of the search advertising market, while spending a lot less money and presumably not having to go hostile to do so. Yahoo, meanwhile, would avoid being fully taken over by Microsoft, would avoid Icahn’s wrath and would get some money and do so while using its brand to build a better competitor to the number one force in the industry: Google.

Long term, it’s still very questionable if even this deal would be very beneficial to either side. Google simply shows no signs of slowing down.

There is also some interesting wording in the very brief statement:

Microsoft is not proposing to make a new bid to acquire all of Yahoo! at this time, but reserves the right to reconsider that alternative depending on future developments and discussions that may take place with Yahoo! or discussions with shareholders of Yahoo! or Microsoft or with other third parties.

In other words: Don’t mess around with us this time Yahoo or we’ll back Icahn.

update: Yahoo has of course responded with its own release — this one even more vague than Microsoft’s:

“Yahoo! has confirmed with Microsoft that it is not interested in pursuing an acquisition of all of Yahoo! at this time. Yahoo! and its Board of Directors continue to consider a number of value maximizing strategic alternatives for Yahoo!, and we remain open to pursuing any transaction which is in the best interest of our stockholders. Yahoo!’s Board of Directors will evaluate each of our alternatives, including any Microsoft proposal, consistent with its fiduciary duties, with a focus on maximizing stockholder value.”

Reads a lot like: “We’re not being bought, but we will do a deal.”

[photo: James Duncan Davidson]

When I first saw that Yahoo and the advertising holding company WPP were set to announce a partnership, my immediate reaction was: Here’s the first of many Yahoo attempts to rebuff Carl Icahn’s (and to an extent, Microsoft’s) hostile takeover bid. However, it seems that WPP is actually upset that the Yahoo and Microsoft merger didn’t happen, according to The New York Times.

“Anybody who is a customer in the marketplace likes to see balance in it,” WPP chief executive Martin Sorrell told The Times. “No one likes oligopolies. Search in America is imbalanced. That’s what Yahoo and Microsoft offered, a bit more balance.”

Looks like even Yahoo’s partners are now kicking it when it’s down.

The WPP and Yahoo deal will grant WPP’s clients advertising access to publishers using Yahoo’s auction advertising service, Right Media. This new range of sites will add avenues from which WPP’s ad-targeting division, 24/7 Real Media, can pull data. When it comes to creating more relevant, highly-targeted ads, the more data, the better.

Don’t be fooled into thinking this and other Yahoo partnerships are going to ease the pressure put on the company to take another look at the Microsoft deal. Some of those partners are pushing for it as well.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

If you’re Yahoo and you have to respond to billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s letter telling the company he was launching a proxy takeover, you don’t have too many options — you’re going to look weak no matter what you say. The way I saw it there were two options: First, don’t respond. Maybe just pretend you didn’t get the letter and didn’t check the Internet today. Or second, come back with a response so long that it will bore Icahn out of wanting to acquire you. Yahoo chose the latter.

The response, by Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock is really quite incredible when compared to the letter Carl Icahn sent. Icahn wrote four paragraphs to Bostock. Bostock wrote thirteen in response.

So what does it say? Well, I think everyone knew what it would say before reading it. Yahoo disagrees with Icahn’s assessment that Yahoo is better off in Microsoft’s hands. It claims to have been very open to a deal with Microsoft and in fact met with them seven times to try and make something work that would be beneficials to both sides.

Unfortunately, according to Bostock, it was Microsoft, and not Yahoo in the end who was unwilling to compromise. As such, Microsoft walked away. Bostock contends what while Icahn asserts Yahoo’s board is incompetent, the board was very much involved in all stages of negotiations and is still actively looking at ways maximize shareholder value.

This “maximizing shareholder value” has been a running theme played by Yahoo throughout this ordeal. Unfortunately for Yahoo, Icahn is now one of its largest shareholders and he clearly doesn’t feel that his investment has been maximized.

This is really all just back and forth and spin at this point. It’s two sides who have completely opposite viewpoints. It could get interesting again if Google re-enters this picture — perhaps this will push them back into a full pursuit of the search advertising deal with Yahoo that it may have been cooling on.

One thing is for certain: Yahoo is in trouble.

Note: I just had to give Bostock the same LOLcat treatment I gave to Icahn.

Wherever investor Carl Icahn treads, there’s usually turmoil.

Now, one of his companies, Motricity, a Durham, N.C. provider of mobile content applications for telecom carriers, is preparing to lay off up to 200 of its 650 employees, according to a North Carolina business publication WRAL.

We haven’t written about Motricity yet at VentureBeat, but the big-name investor Carl Icahn and other venture capitalists have pumped in more than $350 million into the company. The private Motricity is now considering going public.

Motricity acquired the mobile business unit of InfoSpace last fall for $135M, with Icahn, NEA and others providing the $185 million needed for the acquisition. The resulting employee overlap meant that the company would have to make layoffs, so they’ve been expected.

Now that AstraZeneca has made the bold — or impulsive — decision to snap up MedImmune for $15.6 billion in cash, one big question is whether the U.K. pharmaceutical giant has kicked Big Pharma’s appetite for biotech acquisitions into high gear.

The green-eyeshade types are generally still scratching their heads over the rich price, which amounted to a 21 percent premium over MedImmune’s close on Friday. The biotech was known primarily for Synagis, an antibody-based drug that prevents a common respiratory infection in babies, and FluMist, a so-far underperforming influenza vaccine that’s delivered via a nasal spray instead of injection. MedImmune has next-generation versions of both drugs in development, but neither seems likely to set the world on fire. The company also reportedly has more than 40 other experimental drugs in its pipeline, but of course it’s