US giant eyes fast business adoption of its Vista, Office and Exchange Server products
Microsoft Corp will push for an accelerated adoption of its new generation of software - Windows Vista operating system, Office 2007 productivity suite and Exchange Server 2007 - by businesses in Greater China and the rest of the world, following the simultaneous release of those three products last Friday.
'We expect more than 200 million people worldwide will be using at least one of the three products by the end of next year,' said Alexander Huang, Microsoft's regional director for Greater China.
The software maker was supported by about 2,600 local partners - including large and small computer hardware and software solution providers - to help launch the Vista, Office and Exchange Server products for businesses in Hong Kong. It is Microsoft's biggest product launch in the city since Windows 95 more than 10 years ago.
The launch of the packaged versions of those products to consumer markets worldwide is scheduled for early next year.
'Industry analysts expect those three products to represent more than US$250 billion in partner revenue opportunity globally over the next 12 months,' said Herman Lam Heung-yeung, a deputy general manager of Microsoft Hong Kong. 'No set of product releases in history has ever offered this level of opportunity for the industry as a whole.'
The company's worldwide ecosystem of computer hardware, software and services partners numbers about 640,000. They include personal computer manufacturers such as Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard and Dell, information security software supplier Symantec, mobile computing device maker Palm, regional information technology services providers Jardine OneSolution and Automated Systems (HK), and local independent software vendor Titanium Technology.
