Microsoft celebrates launch of Vista, Office 2007
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(InfoWorld) - After five years and numerous delays, customers can now get their hands on the final version of the Windows Vista operating system. Well, business customers can at least. Though Microsoft celebrated theÂ launch of VistaÂ -- as well as Office 2007 and Exchange 2007 -- at events across the globe Thursday, both Vista and Office 2007 won't be generally available through retail in the U.S. until Jan. 30, 2007. Thursday marked the day business customers could purchase those products through Microsoft's volume licensing program. And though business customers can begin ordering Exchange 2007 Thursday, the new version of Microsoft's messaging server software won't be released to manufacturing until the end of December. Not only was Thursday's launch party for all three products a bit premature and anticlimactic after so long a wait for Vista, it could also be the last of its kind, according to industry watchers. With more software being pushed out to customers over the Web as services, launch parties for packaged software products may soon be a thing of the past, they said. "This is a big launch for them but for everyone else it's ho-hum," said James McQuivey, a professor for Boston University's College of Communication who specializes in marketing research and business management. "It's the biggest wait-and-see event of the week. Customers are going to wait and see when they need [Vista] and if they need it." These concerns aside, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer was on hand with his usual enthusiasm at the New York launch event to promote what is arguably the industry'sÂ most highly anticipated product launchÂ of the year. "It's an exciting thing to finally be here," Ballmer said. "That's all I'll say about the past." He had previously promised that Microsoft will never again have another lengthy gap between the major releases of its client operating system. The vendor debuted Windows XP, the previous version of its client OS, in October 2001. "This is the biggest launch in our company's history," Ballmer said. "These are frankly the most significant releases of these two products [Vista and Office] we've ever done." Vista was the big star of Thursday's event, though Microsoft teamed the OS launch with Office 2007 and Exchange 2007 for several reasons. One is that the company is trying to promote the technology links between the products to show how they can bring better worker productivity and cost savings to business customers in the hopes companies will purchase and deploy all three at once. Another reason for the triple product launch is that Vista has been so long coming, Microsoft felt it had to give customers a little extra incentive to be excited about it, said Sunil Misra, vice president of Getronics. The provider of managed services and consulting has been helping business customers prepare for Vista deployment. "It's the love campaign," Misra said, referring to the launch of all three products together. "People have been waiting a long time for Vista." The last time Microsoft released Windows and Office together was with Windows 95. But during that time in the heyday of Windows, customers would have flocked to the new OS release even without its tie to Office. "It's not nearly as exciting as it used to be in the old days," said McQuivey. "With Windows 95 and 98, you actually had people waiting in line at [retail store] Best Buy" to purchase the OS. This certainly isn't the case now, as consumers can't purchase Vista until January. And it may not even be the case then, as consumers in addition to business customers have said they may hold off on purchasing Vista until they need a new PC. Many of those new PCs are bought during the busy holiday shopping season that is currently in progress, but since Vista is not available yet in retail outlets, it can't benefit from that rush. In lieu of that, Microsoft's hardware partners such as Hewlett-Packard and DellÂ are offering discount coupons for the OS if customers buy PCs that are capable of running it this holiday season. On the business side, customers will likely continue their Vista planning process throughout the end of the year and most of 2007, Misra said. Indeed, most analysts think the bulk of Vista business deployments won't happen until 2008. (China Martens in Boston contributed to this story.)
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Windows Vista, Microsoft's new operating system, goes on sale to business customers.
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You'll love it The endless delays to Vista may end up improving the product and its simultaneous launch with the new version of Microsoft's Office Suite will make life easier for corporate IT departments, Microsoft execs insisted this week.â¦
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Sales of Office 2007 outperformed those of Office 2003 during the first week of launch, study shows.
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Microsoft Corp. MSFT.O released on   Friday the final test version of its upcoming Windows operating   system and said the launch for the highly-anticipated upgrade   is running on schedule.
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InfoWorld - Attendees at the Microsoft 2008 Office System Developer Conference this week are leveraging development capabilities in Office System, but cite issues such as getting used to the new ribbon-based Fluent UI in the 2007 Office release.
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Want a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate or Office 2007, but don't want to fork over the cash? You're in luck: we're giving away one copy of each! All you need to do is come up with a witty caption for the following two pictures from the Vista Launch event in New York City.
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Windows Vista attracted most of the hype, but Office 2007 was the sleeper hit that bolstered Microsoft Corp.'s fiscal fourth-quarter results, despite a hefty charge to cover the cost of repairing defective video game consoles.
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The result is trouble-free installation of the Windows Vista Ultimate, Enterprise, Business, Home Premium and Home Basic editions, Via said in a statement.
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NEW YORK/LONDON  - Microsoft Corp. rolled out  Windows Vista in 70 countries on Tuesday, delivering a PC  operating system able to better manage the explosion of digital  media and enhance Internet security.
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Slip of the tongue - or the brain Comment The UK Developer launch of Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office System was pretty impressive, as such things usually are.â¦
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Microsoft Corp. has released the latest preview versions of two members of its System Center 2007 family of management software.
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By Benjamin J. Romano, The Seattle Times  Jan. 29--NEW YORK -- Microsoft is calling for the world's attention today  as it launches Windows Vista and Office 2007, new versions of the two products  used by millions and responsible for most of the company's profits.
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By Robert Evatt, Tulsa World, Okla.  Jan. 31--After 5 1/2 years, Microsoft Corp. finally unleashed its new computer operating system, Windows Vista, at local stores Tuesday.
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By Jim Stafford, The Daily Oklahoman  Jan. 30--Microsoft's new Windows Vista computer operating system officially debuts today, but it could be months before corporate users adopt the new software, according to industry analysts.
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Over its first six months, the latest Windows version can't hold a candle to XP. But: Office 2007 sales rock.
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Reinforcing its positioning of Office as not just an applications suite, but a development platform, Microsoft on Wednesday kicked off its first Office System Developer Conference.