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Microsoft Corp. plans to introduce a number of new versions for Windows and Office, including an enterprise version of the upcoming Windows Vista and a premium version of Office 12, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said at the company's annual financial analyst meeting here on Thursday.

These new SKUs will come in at a higher price point and will help drive growth in that traditional business segment. Along with those new versions will come a new Premium Client Access License for both Windows and Office. "Our product pipeline over the next six months is strong and will also, over the next year, double that of the past three years. I refer to this as Moore's Law of product innovation," Ballmer quipped.

News source: eWeek

Let’s start with what Microsoft told us last Friday:

Its important to note that Microsoft made it very clear to us that Beta 1 does not contain all the end-user features that they have planned for Beta 2. What those features will be is a wild guess because Microsoft declined to tell us.

Upgrading to Windows Vista from previous Windows versions will prompt you to perform an Anti-malware pre-installation setup. Vista now has a full screen domain logon, otherwise known as the "Welcome Screen".

Windows Service Hardening restricts critical Windows services from performing abnormal activities in the file system, registry, network, or any other resources that could be used to allow malware to install itself or attack other computers. For example the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) service can be restricted from replacing system files or modifying the registry. Here's an interesting link from Microsoft that explains the process in detail.

Standard user accounts have been updated so they can change system settings (or install programs) by 'unlocking' the setting using an admin password. This may help users decide to use the 'Standard user' rather than an Administrator group account so that programs can't run in the background without authentication. (A Restricted user account remains an option) Microsoft has done away with the Windows guest account that the majority of people disabled or deleted anyways.

Vista will ship with an integrated "Restart Manager" effectively reducing the number of reboots a machine will need to perform. (Up to a 50% reduction) A lot of Windows users have disabled the automatic update features of their OS so as to avoid the annoying and incessant automatic restart pop-ups.

Virtual Folders in Windows Explorer will show a basic visual reference to the content within. If a folder contains music, the virtual folder will change to reflect the content inside. Same goes for pictures and just about any other type of document on your computer. Virtual Folders will even show a preview of content stored within the folder. (here is an example of what I mean). I used Windows Paint to capture this and it saved as PNG by default.

The new Games Browser features Parental controls for content (Games) using the ESRB Rating system.

IE7 will only be made available on Windows Vista Windows XP SP2.

Print Preview in IE7 gas gained a "shrink to fit" option (normally chops off right hand side of page), and an integrated MSN search field has been added next to the address bar. Additional search providers can be chosen, currently they are: AOL Search, Ask Jeeves, Google & Yahoo. On the toolbar there's a new button that when pressed, displays RSS Feeds you can subscribe to. (You can even subscribe to MSN search results)

Beta 1 has limited implementation; Beta 2 will see more interesting end user features. Basically the message from the IE Team here is, "We have a renewed vision in the future of IE, we are back"

Windows Vista truly promises to be something worth upgrading to, and I haven't even talked about the 'eye-candy' yet. I don't really need to, as you have seen the screenshots and countless articles before this on Aero, Glass and even seen concept themes made for Windows XP that emulate it.

Paul Krevs contributed to this article.