But that doesn't mean the market is saturated, he said in an interview. Ballmer, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and other executives spent the day touting new Office XP features such as SharePoint, which allows employees to share information over a company's intranet, and task panes, which give users easy access to recently used documents and options. Office XP is immediately available in 15 countries. Microsoft will not say how many copies of Office XP will be shipped or give specific sales targets. But at a company event earlier this year, Ballmer said the company's goal was to sell 50 million copies.
Analysts are less optimistic.
So far, Enderle says he has seen low demand for the product. He blames the lukewarm response to a marketing campaign that he doesn't think has done enough to show the product's new features. Some also questioned whether users will be sold on the idea of pricey upgrades in a weakening economy, especially since many recently upgraded to Office 2000. Jean W. Orr, an analyst who covers Microsoft for BlueStone Capital, said she expects Office XP to be a successful product for Microsoft over time, but it may not produce an immediate sales spike. Ballmer said many may choose to upgrade over time, but he defended the company's decision to release the product now, even though the company's new operating system, called Windows XP, isn't due out until October.