After spending an estimated 9 billion dollars on the development of Windows Vista, the Redmond Company has announced through the voice of its Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell that it will continue investments in the platforms, although the main area will shift toward marketing. Liddell was reticent as to confirm or deny that Microsoft is on the right course to meet its self imposed launch deadlines for the applications, although he did reinstate the company's plan to deliver the business editions to volume clients in November while the general public release is still scheduled for January.

Microsoft's $900 million marketing investment to push Vista, Office 2007 and Xbox 360 will come on the span of all quarters in the 2007 fiscal year. In this context half of the announced sum will be spent on launch and marketing related events over the upcoming 12 months while the rest of $450 millions will go to the sales force.

Microsoft's new financial strategy is related to the strong trends the company is experiencing with clients' multi-year license renewals. In the 2006 fiscal year, Microsoft's unearned revenues grew 19%, with an estimated 25% of which related to customer anticipation of Vista and Office 2007.

"The shift to annuity signals stronger customer demand for Office 2007," said Liddell, who said he has seen a growing shift from license-only deals to multi-year contracts. "We had strong quarter for volume licensing. Renewals were on the high end of our range of 66 to 75 percent there's growing customer demand for new products."

Liddell concluded saying that Microsoft expects only modest revenues for Vista and Office 2007 in FY07 due in part to the renewal revenues and multi-year deals that the company has already cashed on.