The BattlePlan is Clear

This CNNMoney article has a focus on what Vista might do to Microsoft stock price. But this quote at the end makes the battleplan for Microsoft IT Pro marketing super-clear <emphasis added>:

"However, public demonstrations have been full of cool graphics effects and consumer features that probably turn off more IT staff than they attract, and sales of Windows upgrade rights to corporations have been disappointing."

Helm believes that to sell Vista to corporations, Microsoft has to include features within Vista that appeals to corporate enterprises, explain clearly what those features are, and outline what hardware and other infrastructure companies need to reap the benefits of Vista."

Update: This article puts it this way <still my emphasis added>:

"The company has been emphasizing how stellar Vista operates in the multimedia home, and the push toward promoting Vista as a consumer gem has left some companies cold.

"With Microsoft, there's always a question of whether it's a home release or a business release," said Gartner's Silver. "There's a feeling by some that because home and business share a lot of the same components, Microsoft just makes the market target bigger by talking about those common features. But that makes businesses feel uncertain, and there's some merit to that feeling."

What Microsoft will need to do in the next few months is highlight the differences in the enterprise version, Silver said. Once the company begins doing that, enterprises could step up their migration plans and potentially even implement Vista sooner rather than later, he said.

"Microsoft is seeing the light on some of what it needs to do to promote Vista to enterprises," Silver said. "But they're not all the way there yet."