2:47 p.m. Growth of 6% in client, commercial, and retail licensing business. Strong momentum from new product releases like SQL Server. Information worker revenue grew 6%, with lots of annuity offerings in Office. Unearned revenue was up 28% from prior year, thanks to demand for Office 2007. Sure hope it's on time so those revenues can be recognized!

2:50 p.m. License-based growth for mobile phone up 97%; XBox grew 125% on the fiscal year.

2:51 p.m. Full fiscal year operating income up 6%, excluding legal charges, but if you normalize for home entertainment (i.e. XBox), operating income grew better than revenue. Not that it means anything, really...

2:53 p.m. Chris Liddell is back, so much better to listen to than the woman (is that Mich Mathews?, no, ahh, it's Colleen Healy, a lovely woman with a somewhat nasal voice) who was talking before. He's talking about expected growth for fiscal 2007; the company expects relatively faster growth in consumer and emerging markets than in OEM, and continued strong performance in the license annuity business. Yay Office 2007, seems to be the refrain. The company is expecting strong revenue growth in the second half of fiscal 2007 (after Office and Vista are released).

2:58 p.m. Expecting great growth in home entertainment, with lots of momentum in the XBox 360, increased commercial rollout of IDTV, and more. Operating income is expected to grow at 8-10% in the fiscal year.

3:00 p.m. Giving more guidance than usual, says Chris, but this is the only time you'll see it! This next part is quite dry as he rattles off numbers... expects $1.43 - $1.47 per share for the fiscal year 2007, with revenue up 10-12%. If customer acceptance of Office 2007, Vista, and Xbox gaming system is higher than expected, things could be even better.

3:07 p.m. The $20 billion tender offer is expected to reduce the outstanding shares by 8%, and senior management has assured the board they will not be tendering any shares. This is simply an authorization, not a commitment, he feels it necessary to mention.

3:08 p.m. Chris says, he thinks, this was a good year! And 2007 is shaping up well, they're expecting another year of double-digit revenue growth.

3:09 p.m. Question time. What Vista release assumptions are imbedded in the plans, with regards to timing? It's the November release to vendors and businesses, and January to consumers. Follow-up question: since so many people are switching to annuity options, would a two-month delay really matter much? It's just a timing issue (recognition of revenue), not a cash issue? He says, not if it's small, but a one-quarter slip would impact between $200-400 million.

3:11 p.m. How will launch activities be scheduled in a constantly shifting launch date environment. Umm, they'll be flexible. What a silly question.

3:15 p.m. Lots of technical questions about the Dutch auction -- seems like logistics that could be answered just by reading the rules of such an offering.

3:19 p.m. From 2007 guidance, which expenses will be one-time in nature, and which will be ongoing? For Vista, Xbox, and Office 2007, there are about $450 million in one-time launch expenses, although of course there will be more products, more launches, more expenses in upcoming years.

3:24 p.m. Will there be any benefits from China? It's too early to say. Anti-piracy efforts have been adding 1-2 percentage points each year, they expect 22% growth rate in unit sales.

3:25 p.m. MSN AdCenter: when will it be profitable, and when will the new stuff be rolled out to other countries? UK in August, France now, Singapore now, there won't be a detailed schedule on other international rollouts but 100% worldwide coverage is "in our line of site." Do not expect MSN to be profitable in this upcoming fiscal year. 2007, an investment year for MSN.

3:28 p.m. What is driving business division growth for 2007? Office 2007, enterprise agreements, and growth in the CRM and ERP products, particularly in the second half of the year.

It looks like a good second half of 2007; and a pretty dismal first half as the company spends in advance of its end-of-calendar-2006, beginning-of-calendar-2007 product launches. And that's all, folks.