[mulligan]

Old news I know, but if it's gonna cost a months wages to buy Office 2007 you can be sure it will be sooner rather than later that it is cracked and widely available in China / Asia in general

Microsoft yesterday released the new generation of its three flagship products Windows Vista, Office Systems, and Exchange Server to businesses in China, in a move expected to create billions of dollars of sales in the world's second-largest computer market.

The products are currently only available to large businesses, who can choose to upgrade their old versions of software or buy new ones. Consumers and small and medium-sized enterprises need to wait until the end of January.

Chen Shaopeng, senior vice-president of Lenovo Group, the third-biggest computer maker in the world and the largest in China, said the release of the products will be a huge boost for the computer sector in China.

"With such revolutionary products, you must have the latest hardware to fully use all the software's functions," said Chen.

For example, the software runs best with 2 gigabytes of memory, rather than the 512 megabytes called for to run current operating systems.

The thirst for power means many customers will have to buy new computers or upgrade their current ones to run operating system Vista and the other new products.

According to Chinese market research company CCID Consulting Co Ltd the industry has been looking forward to a boost from Microsoft's new offerings. Last month, 17 computer makers, including Lenovo, Dell and HP, worked with Microsoft to launch Vista-ready computers.

But industry observers say home consumers do not need to rush to buy, as prices at the beginning of the launch will be high and many supporting software and drivers are not ready yet.

A standard version of Office 2007 will cost up to 3,920 yuan (US$500) at retail, almost equal to the monthly salary of an ordinary office employee.