Yahoo Closes More Services, Ditches Feature Phone Apps

Marissa Mayer is continuing to trim the fat at Yahoo, and she’s doing so by closing down more underutilized Yahoo services and mobile applications. Announced this weekend the company will be closing local event calendar service Upcoming, Yahoo Deals, SMS Alerts, Yahoo Mail and Messenger apps for feature phones using J2ME, and Yahoo Kids.

On Sunday, Yahoo executive president of platforms Jay Rossiter wrote via the Yahoo blog:

“Like we announced last month, we want to bring you experiences that inspire and entertain you every day. That means taking a hard look at all of our products to make sure they are still central to your daily habits. As part of that ongoing effort, today we are shutting down a few more products. We realize that change is hard, but by making tough decisions like these we can focus our energy on building beautiful products for you like the two we introduced this week – Yahoo! Mail for iPad and Android tablets and Yahoo! Weather for iPhone.”

Starting June 3, users of the older versions of Yahoo Mail and Mail Classic will no longer be able to access those programs. Users who can’t download the new version of Yahoo Mail or Messenger can access those program via the HTML-only version and a basic web version. Users of older mobile devices may have trouble downloading and using the new Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Messenger apps.

Many of the services being shuddered allow for quick saving of a users data. Other options allow for different ways to stay connected.

Net revenues reached $1.07 billion at Yahoo for the last quarter, falling short of analysts expectations of $1.1 billion. Yahoo has suffered through slipping advertising revenues, which might explain its decision to focus on top earning and performing platforms that can be developed further.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer claims that her focus on slimming down Yahoo’s platform offerings will help the company stabilize and grow in the future.

Do you think Yahoo is making the right decision in closing down its underperforming mobile applications?