SAN FRANCISCO - CAROL Bartz, a Silicon Valley veteran and former head of software firm Autodesk, was named chief executive of Yahoo! on Tuesday, ending a two-month search for a new leader of the Internet company.

Ms Bartz, 60, replaces Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang, who stepped down as CEO on November 18 after a rocky tenure at the helm of the Sunnyvale, California, firm that lasted a little over a year.

'We are very excited to have Carol Bartz leading Yahoo! into its next era of growth,' Roy Bostock, chairman of Yahoo!'s board, said in a statement.

'She is the exact combination of seasoned technology executive and savvy leader that the Board was looking for.'

Yahoo! also announced that president Sue Decker had decided to resign and would leave the company after a transitional period. Decker had been seen as a potential candidate for the CEO post.

Ms Bartz, in a statement, acknowledged Yahoo!'s recent difficulties.

'There is no denying that Yahoo! has faced enormous challenges over the last year,' she said.

'But I believe there is now an extraordinary opportunity to create value for our shareholders and new possibilities for our customers, partners and employees. We will seize that opportunity.'

Mr Yang, who founded Yahoo! in 1994 with a Stanford University classmate, intends to remain at Yahoo! and the board said his 'iconic stature in the industry make him an invaluable resource for the future.

'We are delighted that he plans to stay actively involved and are deeply grateful for his many contributions to the company's development,' the board said.

Mr Yang, who earned the ire of many Yahoo! share-holders last year for rejecting a US$47-billion (S$69-billion) takeover offer from Microsoft, welcomed the choice of Bartz and said he would 'assist her in any way she finds helpful.'

Ms Bartz served as president, chairman and CEO of Autodesk from 1992 to April 2006 and has remained executive chairman of the board of the company, which is based in San Rafael, California, and has some 7,000 employees.

She formerly worked at Sun Microsystems Inc., Digital Equipment Corp., and 3M Corp. and sits on the boards of Cisco Systems Inc., Intel Corp. and NetApp.

Analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley said Bartz would have her work cut out for her at Yahoo!.

'If she is successful here, she will be a legend,' he said.

'Any qualified turn-around manager asked to work at Yahoo would probably run screaming the other way, because you don't just have to turn this company around you have to figure out which direction,' Mr Enderle said.

'In a difficulty range of 1 to 10, this is an 11,' he said. 'Yahoo is kind of a science experiment so it has to be approached methodically by someone even-tempered and pragmatic, and those are skills she has.'

Yahoo! has been losing ground on the Internet to companies such as Google, MySpace and Facebook and the economic slowdown has hurt the firm particularly hard as advertisers cut back on spending.

Mr Yang's rejection of Microsoft's US$33-a-share takeover bid was met with disapproval by many share-holders including billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who led a revolt against Yang and was eventually named to Yahoo!'s board.

Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has said the software giant remains interested in acquiring Yahoo!'s search business and analysts said Ms Bartz's appointment could revive talks between the companies.

Adding to Yahoo!'s woes last year was the rejection by US Justice Department anti-trust regulators of a proposed advertising partnership with Internet search king Google.

The deal had been expected to earn Yahoo! hundreds of millions of dollars in the first year alone. -- AFP