As if today’s Microsoft layoffs aren’t bad enough, some of the blogging/reporting makes matters worse, by emphasizing that more are coming. Oh yeah? May you doomsayers stub a finger on the M, S, F and T keys.

Recap: Around 5:43 a.m. PDT, CEO Steve Ballmer sent out email “Realigning Resources and Reducing Costs” to Microsoft employees announcing more layoffs.

“This is difficult news to share. Because our success at Microsoft has always been the direct result of the talent, hard work, and commitment of our people, eliminating positions is hard,” Steve wrote. Believe him. Steve means it.

Microsoft announced 5,000 layoffs in January. During the conference call, Steve clearly wasn’t happy about canning anybody. The initial cuts affected 1,400 people, leaving 3,600 to follow later on. I’m sure the axe of uncertainty wasn’t good for morale.

I feel your pain. My layoff came on Thursday, April 30, but I knew trouble was brewing more than two weeks earlier, and most certainly a week before my last day. I’ve always worked——never been laid off before. I can understand both the anxiety of uncertainty about possible job loss and the shock and separation when the axe falls. My best wishes goes to everyone receiving pink slips today.

One highlight of today’s reporting is this paragraph from Steve’s cutbacks memo:

As we move forward, we will continue to closely monitor the impact of the economic downturn on the company and if necessary, take further actions on our cost structure including additional job eliminations.

Many blogs or news stories are playing up this paragraph’s importance. Mary Jo Foley writes: “Ballmer’s layoff mail to the troops fails to rule out more cuts.” That’s the headline, by the way. She’s not alone focusing on this most negative of points.

The positive is more important here. Microsoft’s fiscal year ends on June 30. Now is the right time to make this next round of cuts——and perhaps even it’s a little late. Microsoft should want to finish all the layoffs in this fiscal year——lump all the charges together with earnings declines. Steve isn’t really saying more layoffs are coming but that Microsoft hopes these cost-cutting measures will be enough.

Layoffs now clear way for a cleaner start of fiscal 2010 on July 1. Windows 7 will release to manufacturing during first quarter (if not the last days of June). More importantly, the final layoffs will allow Microsoft’s corporate psyche to heal, as morale begins a slow but certain recovery. Remember: Layoffs are new to Microsoft. Before January, there had been none. Microsoft was a safe place to work. The threat of layoffs is bad for morale——toxin Microsoft had to clean out of its corporate body, either by excision (layoffs) or bandaging (no layoffs).

Still, the timing is strange, and I can’t fathom what the hell the PR folks were thinking——if there was even any public relations coordination. What? Did someone think that today’s release of Windows 7 Release Candidate would somehow obscure the news of layoffs? Just the opposite. The layoffs dampened the news about the RC.

Todd Bishop’s post, “Oh, right, the Windows 7 Release Candidate is also available today,” makes the point by the headline. How right he is. Todd writes:

Pink slips aren’t all Microsoft is giving out today. In what could go down as one of the most bittersweet moments in the company’s history, news of the latest job cuts was accompanied by the public availability of the Windows 7 Release Candidate—one of the final big milestones for a product that has the potential to revive Microsoft’s flagship brand.

Anonymous Microsoft employee blogger Mini-Microsoft called the layoffs “Cinco de Fire-O.” That’s right, it’s May 5. Check your calendars! Mini, I hope that you’re one of the survivors.

Do you have a econolypse story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.