Yahoo! to shut down storage service

Yahoo! to shut down storage service

Yahoo! Inc., owner of the second most popular search engine in the US, will close an online storage service called Briefcase as the company sheds some operations.

Briefcase, introduced almost 10 years ago, will shut on March 30 and users must download or delete files by then, the company said on its website. Yahoo! customers were already shifting to other services, such as its e-mail program or the Flickr photo site, to store files online, the company said.

“Usage has been significantly declining over the years as users outgrew the need for Yahoo! Briefcase and turned to offerings with much more storage and enhanced sharing capabilities,” spokeswoman Kim Rubey said in an e-mailed statement. “Discontinuing the service will allow us to focus our efforts on more broadly used products.”

Chief executive officer Carol Bartz, who joined the company this month, is trying to revive growth amid a slump in online advertising, Yahoo!’s main source of revenue. She took over from Jerry Yang, who stepped down after Yahoo!’s rejection of a $47.5-billion takeover offer from Microsoft Corp. rankled investors.

Just days after Bartz took the job, the company said it would freeze pay for many of its employees. In October Yahoo! said it was cutting at least 10 percent of its workforce. Bloomberg

-- businessmirror.com.ph