According to USA TODAY, Microsoft is prepared to spend $500 million to help market Windows Vista and Office 2007, the latest versions of the company’s dominant desktop PC operating system.
Microsoft is “desperate to change” the mindset that current desktop software is “good enough,” Paul DeGroot, licensing analyst at Directions on Microsoft, says.
Vista and Office 2007 are designed to tie in with new Windows server programs as well as Windows Live, a new initiative now undergoing testing, which will consolidate Hotmail.com, MSN Messenger and other similar services Microsoft is developing.
On another front, rivals such as IBM and Sun Microsystems have been refining desktop systems based on the free Linux open-source-code operating system.
