Yahoo's Jerry Yang resigned from the company's board and all other positions he holds atYahoo!, including those with Yahoo Japan and the Alibaba Group. The move comes as no real surprise. Yahoo! is struggling, and shareholders are still sore with Yang for turning down a $47.5 billion offer by Microsoft back in 2008. Can CEO Scott Thompson pull off a rescue? Blogger Robert Cringley doesn't think so.

I think the Yahoo board punted by hiring Scott Thompson, who is either a stooge for Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang or a convenient placeholder until the company can be sold. I have nothing against Thompson, who did an able, if very vanilla, job at PayPal, but there is nothing — nothing — that distinguishes him as a new media executive. With a wildly dysfunctional outfit like Yahoo, he’ll be in over his head from the first day. I hope for his sake there’s a golden parachute rip cord available for pulling.

This will be one to watch in 2012.