Yahoo has confirmed that Bartz is no longer CEO but no further details were immediately available, .
Bartz saying that she'd been fired by Yahoo's chairman, according to the TechCrunch website.
"I am very sad to tell you that I've just been fired over the phone by Yahoo's Chairman of the Board. It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward," Bartz wrote to employees, according to TechCrunch.
Yahoo did not immediately return calls seeking comment.
Bartz's tenure as CEO began in January 2009 after Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang announced plans to step down. She took over following an extensive courtship in which Microsoft had tried to acquire Yahoo, but which eventually turned into a partnership between the companies.
That partnership hasn't paid off as well as Yahoo had hoped. , and its display advertising business, where it historically was a leader, has begun to suffer too.
"It's not a surprise" to see Bartz go, said Greg Sterling, an analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence.
At the company's , a shareholder called Bartz a "lame-duck CEO" and called for her resignation. Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock defended her at the time.
Bartz was widely supported in the beginning. "She was kind of a breath of fresh air for a while," said Sterling. She had a strong track record as CEO of Autodesk and before that as an executive at Sun Microsystems, and had a "no-nonsense" style, Sterling said. She was known for her colorful language and dropped the "F-bomb" at least once during a company earnings call.
Bartz made a number of organizational changes and for a while had the bad economy to blame for Yahoo's lackluster performance, Sterling said. But ultimately she failed to retain some top talent who left the company since she took over. "There were just a ton of great people that came out of there that abandoned ship," he said.
Yahoo will now need a dynamic leader who will get people excited and bring a strong product vision, he said. Morse would clearly be an interim leader while the company looks to hire a permanent replacement, Sterling said.
Taking on a new leader while the company continues to struggle will be a challenge. "The problem with a new CEO is if you have more of a revolving door," Sterling said. Often, new leaders want to bring in their trusted advisers and remove some existing executives.
The IDG News Service