On July 21, a research note from Katherine Egbert, an analyst with Jefferies & Co., came over my transom:

"[Microsoft] is likely to report tepid June quarter revenue," Egbert wrote, but added that she saw "some green shoots in consumer demand, upcoming 2H seasonality, Win 7 on tap and expense management now part of the culture."

To say the current economic recession has been a disaster for the IT industry is akin to stating that the Titanic sprang a bit of a leak. Microsoft posted its first-ever quarterly revenue decline on April 23, a fact that at any other time in history might have been greeted with howls of investor dismay loud enough to shatter every window between Wall Street and Redmond, Wash. Instead, with the entire industry bleeding cash and jobs, the decline across Microsoft's divisions was simply to be expected.

But now things in the larger world have supposedly started to stabilize. One of Microsoft's competitors, Apple, just posted spectacular numbers for its last quarter, with 2.6 million Macs and 5.2 million iPhones sold, and profits rising 12 percent year-over-year to $1.23 billion, or $1.35 a share. And a rising (or at least not-sinking-so-fast) tide must raise all boats, no?

No, at least according to Egbert and other analysts.

Microsoft will likely post lackluster numbers again this quarter, in line with estimates of 36 cents per share on revenues of 14.37 billion (a 9.3 percent drop from the same quarter last year), but the earnings call at 5:30pm EDT will emphasize that hope is just around the corner, with the rollout of Windows 7, Office 2010 and other flagship products.

The early signs are encouraging. Windows 7 presales have dominated the software bestseller lists of Amazon.com and other online retailers, and advance word on the next-generation operating system, which will be released on Oct. 22, has been generally positive. Any uptick in PC sales heading into the second half of 2009, as people crawl from their economic bunkers and realize their net worth remains a little larger than $1.50, will also help Microsoft in the long run.

That's on the consumer and small business side of the equation. Whether the enterprise will engage in a massive tech refresh centered on Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 and the other juggernauts is still something of a mixed question, one that I'll explore soon in an article on the eWEEK site. Signs are likewise encouraging for that eventuality, but there are also studies, such as a recent one by ScriptLogic, that suggest some larger businesses might not be scrambling over themselves to upgrade.

This quarter's flat numbers aside, then, Microsoft will be looking toward the end of 2009 and 2010 with hope ... but any number of fingers in Redmond will also be firmly crossed in the months ahead.