Yahoo! has reached an agreement with Carl Icahn, which will see the investor and two of his colleagues take their place on the company's board.

Under the terms of the agreement, eight current board members, including the chief executive officer Jerry Yang, are to stand for re-election at this year's annual general meeting.

One board member, Robert Kotick, has taken the decision to stand down in view of the agreement and will not therefore be up for re-election.

Yahoo! chairman Roy Bostock welcomed the deal, saying it "serves the best interests of all Yahoo! stockholders".

He indicated that the current board looks forward to working with Mr Icahn and his colleagues, adding: "Yahoo! is a world-class company with an extremely bright future, and collaborating together, I believe we can help the company achieve its ambitious goals."

Last week, Yahoo! sent a letter to its shareholders to warn them about the joint and ongoing pursuit of the firm by Carl Icahn and Microsoft.

It suggested at the time that their combined agenda did not serve any long-term benefits to the firm, adding it was willing to sell the whole company to Microsoft for no less than $33 (£16.5) per share.

According to a recent survey by Connect, the two biggest IT headaches for businesses were 'everyday hassles with IT' (37 per cent) and 'security concerns' (32 per cent) In a recent survey of SMEs for Connect, the two most important benefits of outsourcing were 'guaranteed response times' and 'allowing in-house IT staff to concentrate on more strategic issues'