Here's What Top Yahoo Execs Really Think About AOL (YHOO, AOL)

We talked to a source close to top Yahoos the other day, and it was curious to hear what this person thinks of AOL – another major tech company going through a huge slump.

Our source told us:

• "HuffPo is a great consumer thing. It's a veneer on other people's content. Arianna is a great spiritual leader. "

• "Tim has done a great job at AOL. It's a f---ing pig on a stick. Most of their revenue comes from dial-up. I think he's done a decent job galvanizing the company around a mission. The day-to-day operations there are a disaster. Tim is finding his way as a CEO. He has single-handledly been able to save sales. Goes out on a bazillion calls, that's not what a CEO should be doing, but he's doing it to save the business."

• "Patch is strategic blunder."

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See Also:

• THE MICROSOFT INVESTOR: Bing's Market Share Up 41% From Last Year, Not Enough To Justify The Billions Spent
• CHART OF THE DAY: This Is What Microsoft Is Getting For Its Big Bing Investment
• THE GOOGLE INVESTOR: Wall Street Weighs In On Google Earnings Before The Bell

Here's What Top Yahoo Execs Really Think About AOL (YHOO, AOL)

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Nokia Execs Go Missing For Two Months Every Year (NOK, AAPL)

Every year, Apple starts selling an updateded iPhone in July.

You'd imagine executives at the world's biggest cellphone company, Nokia, would be working their butts off during that month, dealing with an annual seismic shift in their space.

You would imagine incorrectly.

According to Adam Greenfield, a design consultant who spent two years with Nokia, July is the month executives at the company always check out – until September.

“In mid-July, Nokia House is a ghost town,” Greenfield tells Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

“If you need a decision and the key person’s at the summer cottage? Forget it. You’ll resolve that issue in September. It’s something that hampers their agility.”

No kidding. According to the same Bloomberg BusinessWeek article, Apple gets 3X more revenue per employee as Nokia and HTC gets 2X.

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See Also:

• Amazon Blasts Into Music Streaming Market With Cloud Drive
• iPhone 5 Might Not Launch Until Later This Year... Or 2012?
• Apple "Will Unveil The Future Of iOS" At WWDC June 6-10

Nokia Execs Go Missing For Two Months Every Year (NOK, AAPL)

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AOL Leaves A (Claw)Mark On Poached-Away Execs (AOL, YHOO)

When, after six weeks of recruiting, North American sales chief Mark Ellis finally quit AOL to take a position with more responsibility (and more money) at a much larger and more powerful company, Yahoo, AOL tried to make it look like AOL had actually pushed Ellis out.

How calculated was this plot?

Two sources tell us that on the day AOL announced Ellis's departure internally – and leaked the story to the press – AOL advertising president Jeff Levick demanded Ellis submit his resignation immediately before Ellis was to board a flight. Resignation in hand, Levick waited until Ellis boarded that plane before pushing out the news. The move assured it would be hours before Ellis was back on the ground and able to correct any the subsequent "Ellis-got-canned" spin on the story.

Kara Swisher hinted at AOL's efforts in a recent story on Ellis's move:

While AOL portrayed the move as a well-planned reorganization in an internal memo, the departure of Ellis was a new wrinkle. Several sources said Armstrong found out a week ago about Yahoo’s interest in hiring Ellis, whom Yahoo had been pursing Ellis for far longer.

This is not the first time AOL left it's (claw)mark on an exec quitting for Yahoo. When Shashi Seth quit AOL for Yahoo a year ago, he wrote – with perhaps foolishly explicit detail – in his email to Jeff Levick that he needed to move back West in part because he was having marital problems.  Levick forwarded that email on to the entire AOL's advertising email list.

Asked for response to a story about how "AOL tried to spin it like Ellis was pushed out, but was not," an AOL spokesperson said "Not the case (and is old news)."

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See Also:

• AOL Sales Exec Ellis Not Fired, Going To Yahoo
• Yahoo In Talks To Dump Yahoo Japan
• How AOL's Patch Can Win And Prove Us Wrong When We Say It's A Horrible, Doomed Idea

AOL Leaves A (Claw)Mark On Poached-Away Execs (AOL, YHOO)

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APPLE EXECS ON ANDROID: No, This Is NOT Windows All Over Again (AAPL, GOOG)

With Android zooming past Apple in the mobile space, many people have been wondering if we're seeing the same movie again.

Is Apple about to be lapped in mobile by Google just like it was lapped on the desktop by Microsoft?

Predictably, Apple's top execs say, no way. Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi met with them last week. Here's what he heard:

"While acknowledging the current success of Android, all three Apple executives noted that iOS’s competition vs. Android was not analogous to the Windows vs. Mac battle for several reasons, and that they believed fragmentation in Android was beneficial for Apple. Tim Cook noted that Android was 'not a thing', but rather 'many things' and that OEMs' desire to differentiate their Android offerings was beneficial for Apple. He and Eddy Cue also noted that Apple has 70K iPad applications, while Android tablets have very few, and that Android’s OS upgrade process was much more difficult than Apple’s, leading developers to have to support more Android versions."

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APPLE EXECS ON ANDROID: No, This Is NOT Windows All Over Again (AAPL, GOOG)

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