Microsoft exec Kevin Johnson wrote an email to his team today and later put a copy online. At 1,800 words, you'll never get through it in what's left of Friday. Here's the 100-word version:

Online advertising is an $80B industry by 2010. Yahoo! and Microsoft creates an alternative to [Google]. Yahoo! has issued a press release rejecting our proposal. We have a full and fair proposal on the table. We expect this transaction will close in the 2nd half of 2008.

Q: Benefits?
A: Media companies desire competition. Expanded R&D would drive innovation. Scale economics deliver value.

Q: Impact on staffing? Any reductions?
A: Some overlap. We have no shortage of opportunities. We need people.

Q: The cultures!?
A: Great engineering can change the world.

Q: Live, MSN, and Yahoo!?
A: The Yahoo! brand is the value. It is premature to make decisions about brands and technologies.

Q: Yahoo!'s technology infrastructure is non-Windows based?
A: In other cases we have prioritized continuity.

Q: Silicon Valley and Redmond?
A: Absolutely.

Q: Interact with Yahoo! employees?
A: No.

Q: Customers and partners?
A: Microsoft and Yahoo! continue to compete.

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