Yahoo! Confirms Bartz as New CEO

While Bartz was CEO, Autodesk's annual revenue has ballooned from nearly $300 million to $1.5 billion.

Bartz spent nine years at Sun Microsystems (JAVA Quote), where she eventually became the No. 2 executive behind the server maker's then-CEO Scott McNealy. She also has worked at Digital Equipment and 3M (MMM Quote).

Despite Bartz's resume, she will likely face questions about whether she is a good fit at Yahoo! because she lacks any background in advertising -- the primary source of Yahoo!'s income.

Yahoo! also is far larger than Autodesk, with annual revenue of more than $7 billion and roughly 13,000 employees, nearly twice the size of Autodesk's work force.

If Yahoo! turns its search operations over to Microsoft, many analysts expect the company to lay off thousands of workers to save money. As it is, Yahoo! just dumped 1,500 workers to help shore up its profits during the recession. The company also has lost many top managers during the past two years.