david, your newness is showing.
In all the time I've followed this company (at least 3 years), they haven't seemed to care a whit about communicating with the shareholders (aside from MS's occasional shareholder updates). They don't even have an IR/PR person now, for heaven's sake -- what does that say about where IR and PR are in their priorities? (But even when they had an IR/PR guy, they kept him pretty much in the dark and out-of-the-loop from what I've heard.)
IMHO, they've almost always behaved as if they're running a private company, and it's highly unlikely this will change. So you probably need to just get used to it or move on.
