SEATTLE — Microsoft Corp. on Thursday launched the latest version of Office, called XP, with more than 100 lavish events throughout the country in an attempt to entice people to upgrade the company's flagship business software system.

        An estimated 250 million people already use a version of Office, which includes word processing (Word) and spreadsheet (Excel) software, Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said.

        But that doesn't mean the market is saturated, he said.

Bill Gates introduces Office XP at an event in New York on Thursday. (Associated Press photo) | ZOOM |

        “We have a a lot of users. And users want to be able to use more, get more done, collaborate with others better.”

        Mr. 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.

        At a demonstration in Washington, D.C., tech professionals and government workers packed into the MCI Center chortled when Office XP's PowerPoint program crashed and the program locked up.

        Office XP is immediately available in 15 countries. The basic program will sell for $239 as an upgrade and $479 for new users. Earlier this year, Mr. Ballmer said the company's goal was to sell 50 million copies.

        Analysts are less optimistic.Rob Enderle, a research fellow with Giga Information Systems who tracks Microsoft, says he has seen low demand for the product. He said the marketing campaign hasn't done enough to show the product's new features.
       

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