Microsoft is facing an uphill battle to push copies of Office 2003 on customers and its ISV partner ecosystem, ahead of next year's predicted launch of Office 12.
Office 2003 appears to be falling behind in targeted sales for this point in the product's lifecycle, according to Microsoft's own internal figures and guidelines. Just 15% of PCs are running Office 2003, two years into its life, with Office 12 - the next edition of Microsoft's ubiquitous suite - now on the horizon. However, Microsoft traditionally expects between 50% and two thirds of customers to be running the previous version of Office when the new copy ships.
During a recent press roundtable Chris Capossela, vice president for Microsoft's Information Worker product management group said that Microsoft is holding firm on these numbers, and expects two thirds of the 400m Office installation base will be running Office 2003 at the time when Office 12 ships.
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