The combination of Windows Vista and the Office 2007 System is nothing less than a match made in Microsoft heaven. Earlier this year, the Redmond company has bundled a copy of Windows Vista Enterprise with the Office 2007 Professional edition into a release delivered as a free download. At this time, a 30-day free trial of Office 2007 Professional VHD, a pre-configured virtual hard disk image designed to run inside Virtual PC 2007, is still up for grabs. Still, Microsoft has associated from the get go Windows Vista with the Office 2007 System, simply by taking into consideration the joint launched the company's main cash cows benefited from.

But the joining of Vista and Office 2007 at the hip, although an artificial move, delivered the perception that the two products are somewhat related. And the consumer adoption behavior of Microsoft's latest versions of its flagship products comes to demonstrate this point, according to a poll performed by CDW. The 753 IT decision makers surveyed indicated that Vista goes hand in hand with Office 2007.

"Many customers deploying the 2007 Microsoft Office system are finding that the user benefits are substantial with both Windows Vista and Windows XP," said David Cottingham, director of product and partner management at CDW Corporation. "The 2007 Office release graphic interface is a considerable improvement from previous Office versions, and while it is quite different at first glance, it is more visually intuitive. After adjusting for a day or two, our customers find that they are more productive and don't want to go back."

No less than 42% of the respondents currently having deployed or planning to migrate to Vista indicated that Office 2007 will follow. The trend is strongest with small businesses in contrast to large corporate customers impacted by a larger momentum and a deeply rooted implementation of Windows XP in their infrastructure. "That may be in part because of simpler decision- making processes in small businesses," Cottingham added, "but it is also consistent with the productivity benefits the software offers. It's been our experience that small, lean organizations are often the first to embrace tools that help them accomplish work more quickly and effectively."