These appointments do not come as a surprise, but it is good to see that we can finally put a coda behind this affair. With Biondi and Chapple, Yahoo gains two very capable and experienced new board members and it will be interesting to see if they can influence the future of Yahoo in a positive way, or if the contentious debate over the future of Yahoo in the last few months has left the board dysfunctional.

The last time Icahn gained seats on the board of a major company was in his fight with Motorola. For the Motorola stockholders, this has turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, as the stock has continued its downward trend ever since. For Yahoo's stockholders it remains to be seen if Icahn and his appointees can turn the fortunes of Yahoo (or at least its stockholders) around.

What's Next?

With an additional media and a mobile executive on its board, it would be easy to speculate that Yahoo is going to continue pushing into the mobile and content space. Obviously, none of the appointees come from a search company, which might leave some to speculate that Yahoo might still sell off its search business in the future.

As Larry Dignan points out, this deal has a precedent in Icahn's proxy fight with Motorola in 2007. In the end, there, too, Icahn got seats for his picks on an expanded Motorola board, though this did nothing to improve the performance of Motorola's stock.

While this current deal gives the Yahoo board a chance to focus once again and getting Yahoo back on track, it remains to be seen what Icahn is going to do once he takes his seat on the board. Given his intense focus on selling at least part of Yahoo to Microsoft, it wouldn't be surprising to see him take up this topic once more.

It also remains to be seen what Microsoft will to do next. Now that a deal with Yahoo is out of the cards in the near future, we might see Microsoft pursue more search oriented acquisitions. As Microsoft can't just buy additional market share, it will either have to dramatically improve its search or seriously expand its marketing efforts to gain back the market share it has lost to Google.

In its letter, on the other hand, Microsoft stresses that it submitted a new proposal specifically at the request of Yahoo's chairman Roy Bostock that included the advertising deal outlined in Yahoo's rejection letter. However, Microsoft says it did not request any changes to the Yahoo board.

In his own open letter (PDF) today, Carl Icahn, too, is trying to set the record straight. According to his statement, Yahoo purposely mischaracterized Microsoft's offer by putting too much stress on a 24 hour deadline Microsoft had supposedly set, as well as by pushing the idea that Microsoft might still be interested in buying all of Yahoo, while it is only interested in Yahoo's search business at this point.

Of course, Icahn also stresses that Microsoft is now willing to commit a lot more money than before Icahn got involved in the deal.

As we are getting closer to August 1, when Yahoo's shareholders will get to decide on the fate of Yahoo, this constant mudslinging will surely continue and will, if anything, only get worse. We are already at a point where constant misinformation is being disseminated by all parties involved (to the detriment of the shareholders who will have the ultimate say in this deal). It is not even clear if the latest Microsoft proposal was a 'joint proposal' as Icahn calls it, or if the replacement of the Yahoo board was really part of the proposed deal.

Just a few weeks ago, it seemed the Microsoft-Yahoo saga had come to a quiet end. Now, however, we can look forward to at least another three weeks of battling open letters and announcements.

Icahn is clearly pushing to get Microsoft back to the negotiation table and given Microsoft's response to his letter, this is apparently still a possibility.

Microsoft thinks that a deal with Yahoo is impossible with the current board still in place, because Yahoo's management would be prone to mismanaging the company during the potentially long regulatory delay of the acquisition. Icahn notes that the old board has to go, simply because "one thing is clear -- Jerry Yang and the current board of Yahoo! will not be able to 'botch up' a negotiation with Microsoft again, simply because they will not have the opportunity."

Judging from the letter, Icahn is still completely transfixed on Microsoft as the only possible partner for Yahoo. His first objectives, if elected to the board himself, would be to immediately start negotiating with Microsoft and to replace Jerry Yang "with a new CEO with operating experience".

At the same time, though, rumors about Yahoo being in merger talks with Time Warner also resurfaced again today.