In February I went up to Washington for a visit to Microsoft, to get some partner training about Office 2007. Among the typical freebies I got for attending (laptop bag, USB hub, CD case, etc.) was a pass to the Microsoft company store. I was pretty stoked as I started thinking about what I might be able to get my hands on for super-cheap.

The pass wasn't a gift certificate, just permission to spend up to \$120 of my own money, but at Microsoft employee rates. While I believe there is an actual physical store somewhere, they also have a web site, so I was perusing their wares from my hotel room. I wondered what an Xbox 360 went for at employee rates. Or Xbox and PC games for that matter. And software... some good consumer-oriented stuff. Ooh, and there might be some good Microsoft Press titles to scoop up for super-cheap.

What a disappointment. There wasn't an Xbox 360 anywhere in sight -- presumably because there's enough of a shortage for real customers. I think maybe they had some extra controllers. There were a few games, but I pretty much already own the few that looked interesting. There were some decent deals on Windows XP and Office 2003, but I've got all I need there. I looked at Microsoft Streets and Trips, but some reviews of it I read seemed to indicate that it was headed downhill from previous versions (and still no voice commands for the Pocket PC version). And finally, most of the Microsoft Press offerings were .NET 1.0 titles. They did have the second edition of Code Complete, which I've thought about getting in spite of having the first edition already, but it was out of stock, and they didn't allow backorders. Then there's the fact that the prices weren't much better than what you could get on Amazon.

I thought seriously about a copy of FrontPage 2003 (since I'm using the 2000 version at home), but it's not much better than what I've got, even at \$30. Not to mention that I'd just spent several days seeing the new version of FrontPage (AKA SharePoint Designer) that finally, at last has real XHTML support. I'd pay \$30 for that. But I'm sure I'll get a free copy anyway since I'll not only get a copy with my MSDN subscription at work, but another copy for being a beta tester.

There was a whole other half of the store that was full of Microsoft branded stuff: T-shirts, mugs, pens,  mouse pads and all that stuff. It kind of reminded me of shopping at Old Navy -- you know, where a significant portion of their merchandise is actually an advertisement for their store, but they still expect you to pay for it. There were some "invisible ink" pens that I thought my kids might like... for a few minutes.

So I didn't buy anything, and I'm OK with that. Sometimes the best deal is to hang on to your money.