Carol Bartz, newly named chief executive of Internet company Yahoo Inc, is shown in this undated publicity photo released to Reuters January 13, 2009. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 13 (Xinhua) -- Yahoo Inc, the Silicon Valley Internet giant, announced on Tuesday that Carol Bartz, former chief executive of software company Autodesk Inc, has been named its new Chief Executive Officer.

    The announcement wraps up Yahoo's two-month talent search for a successor of Jerry Yang, its co-founder and former CEO. Yang offered to step down in November last year after he rejected Microsoft's bid to buy Yahoo and failed to forge a partnership with Google.

    "Carol meets all of the criteria we set for the search and is the only person to whom we offered the job," Roy Bostock, chairman of the Yahoo board, said in a statement.

    "We are very excited to have Carol Bartz leading Yahoo into its next era of growth," Bostock said, noting that Bartz is admired in the Silicon Valley as well as on Wall Street "for her deep management expertise, strong customer orientation, excellent people skills, and firm understanding of the challenges facing our industry."

    Despite her track record as an efficient technology executive, 60-year-old Bartz is surely not short of challenges ahead, analysts said.

    With an education background of computer science, Bartz has extensive executive experience in large technology and engineering companies such as Sun Microsystems, Digital Equipment Corporation and 3M.

    From 1992 to 2006, Bartz served as chief executive of Autodesk, a leading company in 2D and 3D design software, which is based in San Rafael, California.

    Figures released by Yahoo showed that during the 14 years when Bartz served as Autodesk CEO, the company's revenues increased from less than 300 million U.S. dollars to more than 1.5 billion U.S. dollars, and its share price increased nearly ten folds.

    At Yahoo, expectations are high for Bartz to dramatically improve the company's performance and to lift its sagging stock price.

    Reports from Bloomberg news service said that Yahoo stocks fell12 cents to 12.10 U.S. dollars on Tuesday in afternoon trading at Nasdaq market. The company's shares lost 48 percent in 2008.

    Admitting that Yahoo has faced enormous challenges, Bartz said she believes "there is now an extraordinary opportunity to create value for our shareholders and new possibilities for our customers, partners and employees."

    Some analysts said Bartz may face intense pressure to sell Yahoo's search business to Microsoft in order to immediately create value for shareholders.

    "Clearly people wonder if she has been brought in to dress up Yahoo for some kind of a sale," Scott Kessler, an analyst with Standard and Poor's, was quoted by San Jose Mercury News, the most influential newspaper in Silicon Valley, as saying.

    In an interview with the Financial Times last week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer indicated that he would reopen negotiations to buy Yahoo's search business once the company named a new leader.