Turns out that selling tons of Xbox 360's for a loss, and hiring lots of new Windows Live (er, MSN) employees, while doing something else that'll increase costs in the future (our execs just gave guidance, but didn't explain why they think expenses are going up), means that we miss earnings estimates.

Joe Wilcox at Microsoft Monitor has the most complete analysis of our fiscal 2006 Q3 results. The market doesn't like these results and is pounding our stock lower by around 6% in after market trading.

CNBC is reporting "Microsoft slammed on earnings report." More on Memeorandum.

The market is a mean and unforgiving place. Our profits are up 13%, but our stock is down. It all comes to expectations and stockholders don't like the increased expectations on the cost side of the balance sheet.

On the other hand, Xbox sales are higher than expected, and that will turn into profits in future years (the more games, and other things, sold on each Xbox brings in money that counteracts the money we're losing on each one sold).

As a blogger who works for a company, and is also a shareholder, I'm always wondering just what I should say about such events?

I know that talking about financials is about the biggest risk there is for those of us who live our lives in the public eye. I know people who've been fired from other companies for doing just that.

So, I'm just going to lay it out there and play it straight.

What would you like employees to tell you in situations like this?

Stefan Constantienescu has been a reader of my blog for a long time (and hangs out on Channel 9). When he told me about his plans for buying a new computer that he couldn't afford, I wanted to hold off on posting it and see if he could make something happen on his own.

He did. He raised $1,000.

Let's go further and get him a MacBook. That costs $2,000 plus taxes (I might be able to get him an employee discount via my brother-in-law which would help). I'll throw in a copy of Windows XP so he can switch back and forth every day (his whole schtick was "make me switch").

Personal note to Tara Hunt: you don't exist.

Oh, sorry, for everyone else, I'm just having some fun with Tara. She notes that big companies like Microsoft are gonna have a tough time getting it.

Totally agreed.

But, we have our secret weapons: Technorati and Bloglines and Feedster and NewsGator and IceRocket and other blog search engines.

They let us listen like a small startup.

The problem is, even when we hear, it takes a lot of convincing internally.

But, even there, we have another secret weapon: internal blogs. Email mailing lists. Lunch meetings. And social pressure.

Tara applies the social pressure. Which is why she's not invisible.

She's also onto something.

Big companies don't get small things. I was talking about that with a bunch of MBA students last night. The average billionaire executive doesn't understand why you'd speak to 100 MBA students. After all, Bill Gates could buy a full page ad in the New York Times and not notice the money missing from his account, right?

But, that's why my email is on my blog. Why my cell phone is on my blog (it's down at the right, and, yes, I do answer it, if I'm not in an interview or something like that).

By the way, I deleted all my feeds and am starting over. Tara's one of the first I added back in.

Jamie has a new C9Park cartoon titled "Browser Wars: 'A new (IE) hope.'"

I almost spit tea out my nose when I saw "Han Scoble." Heheh.

Funny, I just got off of a Southwest airline from San Jose to Seattle and found out that Southwest now has a blog. There's more on Memeorandum.

It's a pretty cold blog so far. It's the kind of blog I think most corporations will start out with. Safe. Take no chances. Don't piss anyone off. Don't reveal anything that the PR team isn't comfortable with.

That's OK, I guess. Most Microsoft blogs are just as boring. So can't throw stones when we live in a glass house.

But, I spend a great deal of my life on Southwest planes. Some things that I'd love to see?

Their IT system rocks. Who developed it, how is it built? Was it done in Java, or VB or C#? What does their data center look like?

What are some traveling tips? Here's one: There are two rows of exit row seats. The first row doesn't recline.

Second, if you fly Southwest ALWAYS check in online (you can do that starting 24 hours before your flight). That'll get you into the "A" or "B" group which will almost guarantee you a decent seat and that your carryon luggage will get on board.

Some other things I'd love to know? Is there free WiFi near their counters anywhere? What's the best restaurant in each airport?

Who makes the most reliable luggage?

Some craft definitely have funnier crews than others. Any way to know whether you'll be on one of those flights?

As a geek I like sitting near the front of the plane where I can see the door. They let me use my Tablet PC or cell phone up to the minute that the door closes. I answered several emails this morning using my Verizon card while waiting for everyone else to load onboard.

Others? What are their favorite online travel resources? (Flight trackers, etc).

Where do they go when they want to have fun on a layover?

Anyway, nice to see more companies try to figure out how to engage with the blogs and, yes, I am nuts about Southwest.

They are a no-frills airline, but generally have the lowest prices when we fly (which is why Maryam switched us to them). One thing, though, their service is almost always better than other airlines I fly, especially in baggage handling — my bags on other airlines can take 20 minutes to show up, but not on Southwest.

Southwest takes a bit of time to get used to (they give everyone a boarding card with "A", "B", or "C" on it, and first on gets the best seats, if you're last on often there won't be space for your luggage so it'll have to be checked). Plus they don't have meals or video screens, at least on the short flights I'm usually on.

Disclaimer: I got these for free to try out, although I'll be giving away both things at the Gnomedex conference in June. The iPod player I got before I set my policy of not accepting free stuff. The U3 drive I got because I didn't have time to sit through Nathan's demo and wanted to try it out. When I received them I made no promises to them about the coverage I would give them, or even IF there would be coverage coming. If I ever have a conflict of interest, I will disclose that to my readers.

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So, last night, Nathan Gold, developer evangelist for U3, shows me a new kind of USB Thumb Drive. He had one loaded up, gave it to me, and said "try this out."

I'm playing with it now. It's a 1GB flash memory drive that plugs into my USB port. But it isn't a normal memory key. When you plug it in it automatically adds a new menu in the system tray. That pulls up a ton of software that Nathan put on my key for me.

Turns out it fools my PC into thinking it's a CD-ROM drive that auto starts.

This is a radical way to distribute test software. Why? Cause I unplug my key and any software I run disappears along with it (and any traces, including any temp files I've downloaded — I got the Maxthon browser on the key, for instance. As soon as I unplug it everything goes away, even registry entries).

Whoa. More details on the U3 site.

++++++++++++++++++++

Maryam has an iPod Nano, so back when I was at CES, when I saw the Xitel HiFi-Link for iPod, I wanted to try it to see if it was really good. Lots of my friends have iPods, so thought this was unique.

It's a box that you hook up to your AV system at home that lets you dock a Nano and play the music off of it onto your AV system.

It does exactly what it says it'll do, is well designed (looks just as stylish as Maryam's iPod) and sounds awesome on our AV system. If you're looking for a way to connect your iPod to your AV system, this is worth considering.

On both of these products I'll buy one after giving these away at Gnomedex.