Microsoft certainly has churned up the waters over at Yahoo! HQ, with the latest fallout seeing the company's annual meeting delayed by Yahoo!’s board. Desperate to fend off or delay Microsoft's hostile buyout takeover at the time, Yahoo! changed its bylaws back in March to extend the deadline for board nominations. The deadline was moved from March 14 to ten days after the public announcement of the 2008 company meeting – a situation Yahoo! board now seems to have taken full advantage of for their own survival reasons in the face of a Carl Icahn attack. The decision was originally made in the context of Microsoft's now-withdrawn takeover bid, and at least part of the motivation was to "allow Yahoo!'s board to continue to explore all of its strategic alternatives for maximizing value for stockholders without the distraction of a proxy contest." That's because Microsoft had indicated it would engage in a proxy contest if the Yahoo! board did not support the takeover, and Yahoo! was trying to find ways to block the Microsoft battering ram. But Yahoo’s delaying tactics may now have backfired on the present board, as it provided ruthless investor Carl Icahn with the opportunity to launch his own shock proxy battle with the apparent goal of bringing about a renewed bid from Microsoft and shaking the Yahoo! board to its very core. Now, the board has delayed the annual meeting from July 3 to an as yet unspecified date "currently expected to be around the end of July 2008" according to an SEC filing, seemingly as Yahoo! board members scramble to fend off the Icahn assault. Not surprisingly, and rather boringly, the Yahoo! board is unanimously recommending a vote for its own nominees, and is advising shareholders to "disregard any proxy card sent to you by the Icahn Entities or any person other than Yahoo!" – and to supersede any Icahn proxy card already completed by signing the one being sent by the company.