Henry Yuen announced last week that he will resign as CEO of Gemstar—TV Guide International. Yuen will be succeeded by Jeff Shell, who has served as Gemstar's co-president and COO. Yuen's resignation, along with that of Gemstar CFO Elsie Leung, comes at a rocky time for the company. It lost a major patent case earlier this year, and its accounting policies have come under fire. With the company's stock price, which at one point was close to $60 per share, down to below $2.60, Yuen had been under increasing pressure from News Corp., which owns 43% of Gemstar, to step aside.
Yuen is best known in publishing circles for his advocacy of e-books. Gemstar entered the e-book industry in early 2000 when it acquired both NuvoMedia and SoftBook (News, Jan. 24, 2000). At the time of the acquisition, Yuen vowed to launch a media campaign that would turn e-books into a product category, and, later in the year, Gemstar unveiled two dedicated devices, the REB1100 and the REB1200, which replaced the Rocket eBook and SoftBook players, respectively. Despite Yuen's early enthusiasm, sales of the REB1100 and REB1200 never took off, and manufacturer RCA said it has no plans to develop and sell future models. Like sales of all other e-books, Gemstar's e-book sales have been slow to grow, and without Yuen as an advocate for the line, e-books face an uncertain future at the company.
