As reported earlier over our Reuters News Ticker, it looks like Steve Ballmer and the Microsoft lawyers worked through Saturday to write a not so nice letter to the Yahoo! board.

The best part of the letter is this paragraph: " If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors for the Yahoo! board. The substantial premium reflected in our initial proposal anticipated a friendly transaction with you. If we are forced to take an offer directly to your shareholders, that action will have an undesirable impact on the value of your company from our perspective which will be reflected in the terms of our proposal."

Now Yahoo! needs to act or it will come to a hostile take over, if the shareholders want to take the Microsoft money. If that is going to happen it will sure be rather unpleasant for the Yahoo! employees.

The open letter to the Yahoo! board got published on the Microsoft site for everybody to read.