Jana Partners the hedge fund railing for a change at the board level at CNET Networks, has sent an open letter to CNET’s management, after a court victory last week.  CNET said last week that it is considering an appeal of the Delaware court ruling.

In the letter, Jana’s managing partner Barry Rosenstein comes out with some strong words: “We believe it is time for fundamental strategic and operational change at CNET..[the CNET board] should make its case for the status quo based on its record, and put away the legal, technical and oratorical ‘chess pieces’ and let shareholders simply decide who is best qualified to maximize shareholder value at CNET.”

Then the letter hold CNET to fire on three points:
-- First, your comment that “we may see more decisions on this front in the next month or so” is misleading. The court plainly and unambiguously rejected CNET’s attempt ..and the only possibility of more decisions on this matter will come if CNET appeals this ruling.
-- Second, CNET has gone to great lengths to create the misleading impression that we are attempting a hostile takeover and that if the seven nominees we have put forth are elected CNET would be run for our sole benefit, thus dictating that we should “pay a premium” to shareholders.
-- Third, you have sought in your comments to create the impression that we will be unable to garner the support of the requisite number of shares to bring change to CNET (NSDQ: CNET). Given that you and the other current members of the Board own only approximately 1% of the outstanding shares and that just in the last two years CNET’s shares have fallen over 45%, vastly underperforming its peers and the market, this confidence seems misplaced.