Following on BoomTown’s report earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal has also named former Autodesk top exec Carol Bartz as a contender for Yahoo CEO in a report today.

Since my post on Wednesday, I have been getting a lot of intense reaction from inside and outside of Yahoo to the idea of an old-line tech CEO–such as Bartz–with little Internet or online advertising experience, taking on the difficult role at Yahoo.

What’s most interesting about the reaction to Bartz is that the kudos and the knocks track very closely.

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How did BoomTown forget former Autodesk exec Carol Bartz for Yahoo CEO?

Yahoo certainly hasn’t. According to several sources familiar with Yahoo’s search for a new leader to replace Co-founder Jerry Yang, the company is looking hard at the longtime and high-profile Silicon Valley executive.

Bartz is certainly an experienced tech exec and was chairman, president and CEO for 14 years of a company that makes design software. She also serves on the board of Cisco with Yang and on the board of Intel with Yahoo President Sue Decker.

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BoomTown’s got nothing, which is not something I like to say very much.

I am talking about the Yahoo CEO search, which is either being done by the Internet giant’s board in such elegant secrecy and with such amazing stealth that it is getting by everyone.

That or it’s business as usual for the Yahoo board, which so far has never met a challenge for the company it could not drag out painfully and with great public dithering.

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With so many more ex-Yahoos out there now, BoomTown put out feelers to a range of them to ask whom they would like to run the company they no longer work for. After all, who better than to pick a new CEO than an ex? The response was swift and varied wildly, depending on which way the ex-Yahoo felt the company should go, from a basic turnaround expert to–drum roll, please–his digital Holiness, Steve Jobs of Apple. No kidding.

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Earlier this week, in a piece about Yahoo layoffs, BoomTown reiterated the notion that Yahoo would pick its next CEO to replace its current leader Jerry Yang from its own board or some dark horse CEO, rather than one of the Web’s more high-profile players.

The Wall Street Journal raised such a name in a piece today–former Vodafone Group CEO Arun Sarin.

It’s an intriguing idea, to be sure, since Sarin meets the list of six key criteria the board has created, including having public company CEO experience.

But there are other dark horses who fit that bill.

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While there are layoffs all over now, as evidenced by the dismal jobs reports last week, the long-planned Yahoo layoffs will definitely be taking place Wednesday. The layoff number was announced by its (eventually outgoing) CEO Jerry Yang on its last earnings call on Oct. 21. BoomTown wrote about the exact timing of the sad date a few weeks ago. Many Yahoos have emailed me to ask the particulars last week, since most at the company don’t know what’s up. Here’s what I found out.

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With Yahoo board Chairman Roy Bostock reportedly assuring investors and others that the company will have a CEO in place by the end of the year, it seems prudent for BoomTown to initiate an official Yahoo CEO Countdown.

After all, this column had a 100-Day No-Sacred-Cows Vision Quest to mark the time that Jerry Yang said he needed to give Yahoo a top-to-bottom look-see when he took over last summer as CEO.

So here’s today’s update: No Peter Chernin and a lot of thorny issues for other candidates.

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Now let’s return from the land of fatuous deal schemes and half-baked plots to buy Yahoo and get to the most critical issue facing its board right now: Finding a new CEO to replace outgoing leader Jerry Yang.

Sources tell BoomTown that board Chairman Roy Bostock has been asserting a new CEO will be named by the new year.

Only 28 more shopping days until management clarity!

Well, maybe not so much, given there is no formal search committee. But there is a list and a pending AOL deal, so let’s hope for a miracle on 701 First Avenue in Sunnyvale!

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When everyone else has been selling, it seems Carl Icahn has decided to throw good money after bad–as in nearly $1 billion bad–by buying almost seven million more Yahoo shares, according to a regulatory filing.

Why is he doing it? BoomTown is guessing that the billionaire investor thinks he can recoup some of his massive losses in Yahoo, as Jerry Yang prepares to step down and the board, on which Icahn sits, names a new leader.

That’s why my guess is that the choice of a new CEO is likely to be sooner than later, much more Icahn-friendly and strong on operational skills.

BoomTown’s new guesses: Yahoo board member John Chapple or perhaps an ops star like HP’s Todd Bradley.

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Obviously, the dream CEO for Yahoo is News Corp. President and COO Peter Chernin.

And, no surprise, he is the No. 1 choice of most inside and outside Yahoo in the wake of the news late yesterday that its current CEO and Co-Founder Jerry Yang is stepping down.

Well, Yahoo would certainly be a challenge for Chernin, in terms of a corporate cleanup challenge, especially compared to figuring out how to make bank on plush toys from “The Simpsons.”

But there are many other contenders for the job, despite the slog it could be. Here’s BoomTown’s list…

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With a $10 stock price, the turning down of Microsoft’s $31 a share offer, a collapsed search ad deal with Google, fleeing execs and bad news aplenty, it’s easy to blame Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and call for his ouster.

After all, the buck does stop with him.

Or does it? Because, to my mind, if there is anyone to cast stones at in the ongoing crisis at Yahoo, BoomTown would have to toss a large boulder in the direction of the company’s incredibly shrinking board.

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Yesterday, in what feels to BoomTown to be a deeply petty move, Time Warner said that it had blocked former AOL head Jon Miller from being considered as a possible Yahoo board member.

The reason is a noncompete Miller signed, part of a severance agreement he reached with the media giant after it unceremoniously tossed him out in late 2006.

A Time Warner spokesman said Miller was barred from working “for a variety of competitors, including Yahoo, until March of 2009.”

Like it matters.

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And, as BoomTown wrote yesterday, so the war of attrition for Yahoo begins.
Not with a bang, but a whimper. And so much whine, I am considering serving up a nice plate of cheese to all players.
But while the first moves by Microsoft (MSFT), which is seeking to take over Yahoo (YHOO), seem a bit [...]

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BoomTown wrote a few weeks ago that Microsoft (MSFT) was fishing in Silicon Valley and also for “three to four big-name CEOs” for directors to nominate for its own Yahoo (YHOO) board slate, in the event the software giant took off the gloves and tried to oust Yahoo’s current board and replace [...]

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