You’ve all read about the proposed deal. The National Post has a copy of the letter that Ballmer et al sent to the Yahoo board. Here are two paragraphs I found interesting:

1] Ballmer reminds Yahoo that he/Microsoft was right all along (emphasis added)

“In February 2007, I received a letter from your Chairman indicating the view of the Yahoo! Board that “now is not the right time from the perspective of our shareholders to enter into discussions regarding an acquisition transaction.” According to that letter, the principal reason for this view was the Yahoo! Board’s confidence in the “potential upside” if management successfully executed on a reformulated strategy based on certain operational initiatives, such as Project Panama, and a significant organizational realignment. A year has gone by, and the competitive situation has not improved.“

2] Ballmer discuses 1 of 4 areas for synergies. Very cool/interesting that R&D made the list. It’ll be interesting to see what Microsoft does with Yahoo’s PHP investments. Because, at the end of the day, every time someone new uses PHP, a VB angel loses his/her wings. What will happen to Yahoo’s broader OSS use in running its business?:

“Expanded R&D capacity: The combined talent of our engineering resources can be focused on R&D priorities such as a single search index and single advertising platform. Together we can unleash new levels of innovation, delivering enhanced user experiences, breakthroughs in search, and new advertising platform capabilities. Many of these breakthroughs are a function of an engineering scale that today neither of our companies has on its own.”