Rich thinks Yahoo! should do a deal with Google to let them monetize their searches. Given the superiority of the Google product and monetization and the fact that in the deal Yahoo! would end up with 90% of the money, he might be right.
If, though, Yahoo! thinks search is key to their future, owning that piece is critical to their growth/ staying relevant and Panama will get them there, then they might actually want to take a clue from Google and change the Yahoo front page. I'm not a designer but I picture a big search box in the middle of the page, with links to email, finance and one or two other services being displayed. All of the other Yahoo! services being accessible via search.
Given how lucrative search is, what always struck me as brilliant about Google's home page was how it forced users to search (something they want to do anyway). Yahoo! might want to think about this strategy as well. Otherwise, their stuck with the publishing model, and I already said my two sense on that one.