The company and its chief executive, Carol Bartz, are grappling with issues including flat revenue, executive departures and news that private-equity firms have been exploring deal possibilities that include merging Yahoo with AOL Inc.
"The people I talk to inside the company say they're running flat out, " says a former top PDVSA executive who, like many in Caracas, is fearful of being identified.
But the National Bullying Helpline's chief executive, Christine Pratt, contacted the BBC to say a flat denial sent out the wrong message and she would expect Downing Street to follow "due process" and look into complaints.
"He just flat out wore me down, " Mr. Smith, now executive editor of The Washington Examiner, recalls.
When Hickey took over as chief executive in 2000, after 20 years at the company, he made the flat-bubble breakthrough his personal mission.
But flat sandals are nothing but bad news, says Bob Thompson, executive director for the Institute for Preventive Foot Health, who doesn't own a single pair.
Jeffrey Joerres, Manpower's chief executive, says the first quarter of this year is also likely to be flat, although he takes some comfort from the fact that, so far this year, things have got no worse, and weakness is confined mostly to manufacturing.
The report, based on data from the association of State Higher Education Executive Officers, contends that spending per student on public higher education has been essentially flat since 1985.
"Normally we would expect to be able to grow our biscuit sales - albeit in a pretty flat market - but we have come under some pressure, " said chief executive Jo Stewart.
It charges a flat hourly fee for sending a team of agents onto the street, but Chief Executive Simon Rydings, would not say what that was.
BBC: NEWS | Programmes | Moneybox | Cost of charity street collecting
Now, as chief executive of Applied Materials, the biggest pick-and-shovel maker for the semiconductor and flat-panel display industries, Splinter, 56, wants to forge a sunny-side-up version of Moore's Law.
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