Former Googler Mayer wants iPhones for Yahoo

Ironies are everywhere in Silicon Valley. Take new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, for instance. Mayer spent 13 years at Google — Ground Zero for Android — yet now is considering buying every Yahoo employee an iPhone. Seems workers at the search company are a polyglot bunch when it comes to phones with many using BlackBerries, Android handsets and iPhones, of course.

It’s not clear why Mayer settled on the iPhone instead of Android, but one unnamed source “familiar with Mayer’s thinking” told BusinessInsider that the goal is to “get consistency across the company.” However, early on Mayer professed interest in the iPhone, showing up at a press meet-and-greet with an Apple handset. She later went on to explain: “I use lots of phones.”

Still. A former executive of Google, fresh from the inner sanctum of Android, apparently considering mass giveaways of iPhones at her new employer?

Of course, this isn’t the first time the iPhone and Mayer have been linked. Even before Android existed, in early 2007, the then Google exec had a secret crush on Apple. Indeed, an analysis of her tweets found aside from her desktop computer, most of Mayer’s Twitter conversations were conducted using the iPhone client, reports the UK’s Guardian.

Mayer’s interest in the iPhone could be more than superficial, however. Yahoo is in need of cash or a new direction — preferably both. It’s clear Apple would like to untangle its iPhone apps from Google, such as mapping. One prevailing theory is that Yahoo could be courting Apple to take Google’s place.  A good place to start is by adopting the iPhone company-wide.

No matter how ironic, everything in Silicon Valley gets back to The Deal.