By Nigel (Chief News Junkie)

While losing the Yahoo deal may actually be good for Microsoft (and will most probably give a boost to its stock price) it certainly doesn’t look good for the architect, Steve Ballmer. TechCrunch asks the question “Does Ballmer Need To Go?” stating that after the disaster that was Vista, Ballmer needed to redeem himself in the eyes of board. Now that Yahoo has fallen through his fingers he doesn’t look like he has much of a strategy.

‘Leave to pursue other opportunities’ 

To be honest, I think it is very unlikely that Ballmer will get the boot (sorry, ‘leave to pursue other opportunities’) because of this deal. Yahoo didn’t really put up much of a defense beyond a belief that they are worth more. Nothing that they have done in the last 3 months has given me the impression they are really going to turn the business around never mind seriously compete with Google. So if Yahoo are likely to continue to flounder then Microsoft may as well bide their time and pick them up later at a lower price. Ballmer didn’t make the one mistake that that CEOs always make which is to over-pay.

Prediction time

My prediction is Ballmer is safe until the end of the year at least. The market is currently forecasting an 80% chance that he will be there. Don’t agree, get on here: Will Steve Ballmer still be CEO of Microsoft at the end of 2008?

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By Nigel (Technology Editor)

Techcrunch is reporting that Facebook fatigue is setting in with the number of visitors in the US down; dipping by 800,000 in January. There may be some seasonal effect as MySpace also dipped but not by as much as Facebook despite being larger. The Guardian is reporting an even bigger drop in the UK, with Facebook visitor numbers down 5% on December.

One swallow doesn’t make a summer but one data point is usually more than enough for Robert Scoble to draw a line. In his recent post, Is Facebook Doomed?, he links Facebook’s downturn to it’s limitation of 5,000 friends which seems to affect the sum total of one person, Robert Scoble!

I guess by that twisted form of internet mathematics, Scoble equals 800,000 visitors. I can see a new unit of measurement, a Scoble! With 33.9 million US visitors Facebook is at 42.4 Scobles, which is surely a much easier number to remember.

But what does this mean for Zuckerberg? BoomTown is reporting that senior management changes are happening in Facebook with them looking to hire a seasoned technology veteran (an unZuckerberg) to act as a steady hand to Zuckerberg who would retain the CEO position. But the question has to be asked: Will the right candidate want to report to a 23 year old (even one as visionary and successful as Mark)?

Will Zuckerberg still be CEO by the end of 2008? None of the pundits are making predictions on it but Hubdub users are currently forecasting there is only a 63% chance that he will. And that’s down from 90% just over a month ago.

Will Mark Zuckerberg still be CEO of Facebook by the end of 2008?

What do you think? Click here to make your own prediction.

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