Another Set Back For Microsoft

[devaraj]

Source : Reuters
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Microsoft Corp said on Thursday it will delay the release of its Office 2007 business productivity software to improve product performance in the latest setback for the world's largest software maker.

Microsoft said it will now aim for a launch of Office 2007 to business customers by the end of 2006 rather than an earlier target of October. Microsoft also said it would delay the general availability of the Office upgrade to early 2007 from its previous January target.

The delay of the 2007 Microsoft Office package, which includes the Word processor, Excel spreadsheet and PowerPoint presentation software, marks the latest slip-up at Microsoft, which has been plagued by a series of postponements.

Microsoft had already pushed back the consumer launch of Office in March to coincide with the delayed debut of its Windows Vista operating system. It postponed the release of its much-anticipated upgrade to Windows until after the crucial holiday shopping season to improve the system's quality.

Office and Windows are Microsoft's two mainstay products, accounting for more than half of the company's total revenue.

Jupiter Research analyst Joe Wilcox downplayed the latest delay for Office since most businesses were probably not planning to deploy the software before the end of the year, but said this could deal another blow to the company's image

[Strider]

Quite frankly Microsoft is under no pressure. They could release office 2007 and vista in 2009 and people would gobble them up. The fact remailns that they have very little competition.

[JGuru]

This is actually a setback for the Redmond giant. MS is losing it's market share
slowly thanks to Linux penetration. And OpenOffice.org has recorded a record
number of downloads, since it was available. As you'll see in the near future MS
will be forced to reduce it's prices for Office suite & Windows OS (Vista, Siesta,
Zesta whatever comes in the future) to compete with Linux.

[nik_for_you]

ms is not good in meeting deadlines !!! bad company...