Microsoft is courting Yahoo! for $44.6 Billion in cash and stock. Below is the text version of Steve Ballmer’s conference call that came in 6 O’clock this morning.

This is likely the most important deal to happen to Tech in the last 6 months. Unfortunately it has been analyzed into the ground by the tech community, so lets do something different.

Instead of me pontificating on why this is important, why don’t you tell me? Is this the deal that will finally allow these two corporations to take the fight to Google, or is it just another instance of Microsoft swooping in to pick the bones of a potential competitor.

Steve Ballmer

We’re all very excited about today’s announcement. We see this announcement as significant for out joint shareholders, customers an employees. We also see this announcement as the next major milestone in Microsoft’s company wide transformation to embrace online services overall, and to invest very successfully in search an advertisement.

As you may of seen in the information we sent out early today we have been engaged in conversation with Yahoo management off and on for the last 18 months. Last night I called Jerry Yang to discuss our proposal, it’s a proposal we believe to be a very good deal for Yahoo shareholers an an offer we want them to think about — seriously, to be excitement about and particularly have the Yahoo! employees be very, very excited about.

If you look at Microsoft and Yahoo! our companies really do share a vision for the potential of online services and advertising specifically. When you combine the strengths of our two companies, the result will be an incredibly efficient and competitive offering for consumers, for advertisers and for publishers. There are now several steps we’ll both need to take in order to successfully step forward, we are very committed to this.

A year ago the Yahoo! management team told us it really wasn’t the right time to discuss an acquisition. We believed then in the benefits of combining the two companies, and we believe now in those benefits more than ever.

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