Yahoo's long-missing Sue Decker has, at last, surfaced at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's conference in Phoenix, where she and CEO Jerry Yang told the crowd that everything is fine. Yahoo just needs a little more time. Remember Panama? Decker's hoping you don't.

CEO Steve Ballmer doesn't want to raise Microsoft's bid for Yahoo, preferring to begin a proxy fight for control over Yahoo's board instead. But it's likely he'll have to soon offer more anyway. According to the WSJ, proxy fights rarely result in wins for the aggressor. Since 2001, only five of 27 such battles resulted in board seats for the hostile bidder. As a result, suitors raised their bids in 63 percent of all hostile approaches over the last five years.

Refusing to up his bid for Yahoo, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will this week begin in earnest a proxy fight — a direct appeal to shareholders, bypassing Yahoo management — for control of Yahoo's board. Sources told the New York Times Ballmer views a proxy fight — which could cost as much $30 million — as as a cheap alternative to raising the bid. Even a dollar increase over Microsoft's original $31 per share would cost the company $1.4 billion. That's a cost too high, considering Yahoo's entire board — already considered fractured — comes up for reelection this year, and nominations are being taken through March 14.

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang doesn't want to see another Bradley Horowitz go. So, to stop key talent from heading out the door, Yahoo plans to stuff a few coat pockets with fat new retention packages, Kara Swisher reports. Along with more cash, these packages will include a change-in-control clause that bloats the severance pay a new owner would have to pay to lay off these employees.

In the Yahoo-Microsoft takeover battle, Yahoo's 40 percent stake in Yahoo Japan is treated as an afterthought: Spare goods to be sold off to boost shareholder returns. But Yahoo Japan, in its home country, is Google, eBay, and Yahoo rolled into one. It's worth $29 billion — more than Yahoo itself was worth before the Microsoft bid. Which raises the question: Why isn't Yahoo Japan the one buying Yahoo? Before you dismiss it, consider the precedents.

Did Amazon.com run out of kneepads? Jerry Yang begged Rupert Murdoch to save his company from Microsoft. Rush Limbaugh begged Steve Jobs for tech support. Three of you sent emails begging us to stop running Melissa Gira Grant's posts about sex and money in Silicon Valley. Thousands of you begged us not to. And we all saluted Willie Brown, San Francisco's thoroughly corrupt mayor who legalized one other thing that brings us low.

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang has lost control of the Yahoo board. New Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock and billionaire Ron Burkle now lead a majority contingent which worries CEO Jerry Yang has let his emotions override his duty to shareholders in the face of Microsoft's takeover attempt. Support for Yang's efforts to resist Microsoft has dwindled to just Softbank's Eric Hippeau and Activision CEO Robert Kotick, the New York Post reports.

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang may be shooting blanks in his takeover tussle with Steve Ballmer, but he's still a stud in the sack. He and wife Akiko Yamazaki are expecting their second child, a girl. (Photo by Stanford News Service/Steve Gladfelter)

Missed earnings, recession fears, and dodgy deals are eviscerating the stock portfolios of tech titans like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Eric Schmidt. Here's the damage.

In a new letter to shareholders, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang explains why he and the board rejected Microsoft's acquisition bid. It's a rehash of the internal memos sent to employees and then prophylactically leaked to the SEC these past few weeks. In the letter, Yang promises that Yahoo will grow its online advertising market share to 20 percent "over the next several years." So far, Yahoo shareholders remain unconvinced. The company's share price remains essentially pegged to Microsoft's bid. Here's the whole thing.

Wily old Rupert Murdoch. His media conglomerate, News Corporation, is in talks to merge its social network site, MySpace, with Yahoo, reports the Wall Street Journal. Why is this so clever?

Brin, Page and Schmidt have cut and run on Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang. Word is Google execs visited with Yang and the Yahoo board last week and encouraged them to say no to Microsoft's offer. As incentive to do so, Google is said to have offered to take over Yahoo search and immediately boost the floundering company's cash flow. On Monday, Yang officially rejected Microsoft's offer. But now that Yang and the board face a proxy fight with Microsoft, these Google executives are suddenly less interested in bailing Yahoo out, the WSJ reports. Sources tell the paper that the Googlers' enthusiam waned as antitrust worries waxed. But we wonder if all Google wanted in the first place was to keep Microsoft and Yahoo from doing anything quickly.

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang's earned new respect all over the Valley for standing up to Microsoft and Steve Ballmer over the weekend. On Wall Street, major investors think enough is enough. Mutual fund house T. Rowe Price, which owns 18 million Yahoo shares, yesterday said it would be "very vocal" if Yahoo rejected any increased offer from Microsoft. Fund manager Larry Puglia called Yahoo "floundering." Capital Research and Management, which owns 11.6 percent of Yahoo, wants Yang and the board to welcome their new overlords, too.

At Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's bidding, proxy solicitation firm Innisfree yesterday began calling Yahoo shareholders to ready them for a fight to replace Yahoo's board, the New York Post reports. Over the weekend, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and the Yahoo board said it would take at least $40 a share for Microsoft to buy the company. That's a price one source close to Microsoft called "absurdly high." Ballmer has until March 14 to nominate new directors to Yahoo's board who agree.

The elaborate Kabuki routine being acted out in Microsoft and Yahoo's boardrooms serves one purpose: To cloud the notion that the takeover is about money. It is, of course. Watercooler talk at Yahoo's Sunnyvale HQ is that management is pushing for $36 a share — conveniently more than halfway between Microsoft's initial $31 bid and Yahoo's $40 counter. But Jerry Yang seems opposed to a sale at any price. And he has a secret plan to reboot Yahoo.

Jerry Yang, normally a shy type, has suffered a bout of logorrhea, spewing forth "confidential" memos which are promptly leaked filed with the SEC. Those who work at Yahoo are surely too busy saving the company to read ALL the boss's excess verbiage. For those busy souls, here are the highlights of Yang's oeuvre, with a special bonus — capitalization.

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang made all the right noises in leaked memo number three this morning. But shareholders don't really believe Yahoo will remain independent, Bits points out. If they did, Yahoo's share price would already be back near its four-year low, as it was before Microsoft made its offer. Instead, Yahoo shares closed at $29.87, about a dollar more than where Microsoft's current offer stands, at $28.91 per share.

Tom Lantos, a longtime Congressman for the Valley, has died. He had suffered from esophageal cancer. Unlikely to shed a tear: Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, who was called a "moral pygmy" by Lantos after Yahoo outed a Chinese dissident to the authorities. [Huffington Post]

In this "internal" memo — actually Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang's latest filing with the SEC — Yang reveals that Yahoo's board unanimously rejected Microsoft's offer. He writes that with access to 500 million Internet users, Yahoo's brand, financial strength and technology show the company is "on the move." Presumably, he means in a different direction than the one Yahoo's share price has gone for the the last four years. Here's the whole memo.

Belief is a powerful thing in this valley of hopes and dreams. Yahoo's board is set to reject Microsoft's offer to buy the company at $31 a share. Instead, Jerry Yang and Yahoo's other directors are seeking at least $40 a share, or nearly $60 billion — a price Microsoft may not be willing to pay. This is incredibly gutsy. It may wreck the hopes of a deal. And yet it may save the company.