Well, Microsoft has really geared up for 2008, and is reloading the Windows Vista Wow. In early 2007, as Vista hit the shelves worldwide, the Redmond company accompanied the operating system with an estimated $500 million marketing campaign. The new initiative is somewhat less expensive and focused on the YouTube video sharing service. At the end of December 2007, nine videos were uploaded to the site focused on Windows Vista and Windows Live. With the WindowsVistaAndLive videos, Microsoft has chosen to emphasize various functionality examples of the operating system and the online suite of programs and services, as well as the integration between the two in mundane end-user scenarios.

Users will be able to watch examples of how Vista and Windows Live can deliver new and improved experiences involving specific benefits associated with the two products. Having dropped the Wow factor, Microsoft is, in this manner, going for a more hands-on approach bringing to center stage actual demonstrations of the functionality and capabilities of Vista, Windows Live and Office 2007. Of course that, as far as Microsoft is concerned, this is but an example of its Software plus Services business strategy hard at work.

Rather than building the Windows client and Windows Live as separate, standalone offerings, the Redmond company is blurring the dividing boundaries between the two. In Microsoft's S+S vision, Windows Live is melted away into the Windows platform, providing users with a complex ecosystem of applications and services hosted, but orbiting around the operating system.

And as the general tendency is for traditional software solutions to transition online, Microsoft has to not only ensure its Windows and Office near-monopolies, but also grow its Internet presence while delivering the least amount of damage to its desktop-based business model. And in this regard, the S+S model, with Vista + Windows Live serving as an illustrative example, is but one of the first steps that offer a preview of where the company is going with Windows.