Microsoft plans to flex its considerable marketing muscle when it introduces its new operating system, Windows Vista, later this year to generate as much buzz as it did ten years ago when Windows 95
was launched. Company chairman Bill Gates is said to have personally given marching orders to his marketing team, instructing them to develop programs that will get consumers to stand in line to
purchase the new system, much the same way they did with Windows 95. Dave Block, a senior product manager for Vista, said a dedicated team at company headquarters in Redmond, Wash., is focused
entirely on generating buzz for the new system and wants to insert a Vista PC onto Oprah Winfrey's "favorite things" list. The marketing budget for the plan won't be finalized until the end of
Microsoft's fiscal year in June, but it's expected to be big. Microsoft says it expects more than 400 million PCs to be running Vista within 24 months of the launch. Block said the goal is to reach a
rate within that time where more than half of those machines are running some premium version of the system.
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