When Microsoft released Windows 7 on Oct. 22, a number of pundits said that the worst enemy of the new operating system would be Windows XP: After nearly a decade of upgrades and service packs, not to mention its high penetration levels within the business world, XP was stable and familiar enough to have users potentially questioning whether they wanted to upgrade at all.

Microsoft tried to solve that problem by issuing a whole boatload of incentives for people to upgrade to Windows 7, including discounts on pricing. And maybe it had an effect; although Microsoft's overall operating system share has declined incrementally from 93.74 percent in February 2009 to 92.21 percent in December 2009, according to statistics firm Net Applications, the adoption rate for Windows 7 has climbed steadily to 5.71 percent of the overall market by December 2009 (at the same time, the market share for XP has sunk from 75.68 percent in February 2009 to 67.77 percent in February 2009).

Now Microsoft's trying to do the same thing with Office. Until June 30, 2010, businesses with OEM, Retail or Volume licenses running Microsoft Office Professional can use "the Up-To-Date discount available through the Open Value Subscription to get 50 [percent] off their Year 1 payments," reads a Jan. 1 posting by Eric Ligman, Global Partner Experience Lead, on the Microsoft SMB Community Blog.

"As an example, in the U.S., this means you would be paying $35.00 for a Windows 7 Professional Upgrade and/or $91.00 for Office 2007 Professional Plus in year 1," Ligman continued, "plus receiving all of the Software Assurance benefits (such as an automatic upgrade to Office 2010 when it launches, Office Home Use rights, and much more)."

More details can be found here. Also on offer is a similar deal to upgrade Windows.

Microsoft previously announced that Office 2010 would be released in June 2010. A beta version of the productivity suite is already in public beta, and can be downloaded from this site.

In addition to facing a challenge from users who may be disinclined to upgrade, Microsoft also faces the rising specter of cloud-based productivity programs, including Google Apps, potentially eroding its market share in years to come. To combat that particular threat, Microsoft is also offering stripped-down, browser-accessible editions of OneNote, Excel, Word and PowerPoint to Microsoft Live subscribers for free, allowing them to access and edit documents online.

As part of its efforts to boost its bottom line in 2010 after a few quarters of declining revenue in 2009, however, Microsoft needs to encourage users to migrate, even if the users in question find the functionality of Office's previous versions applicable to their current needs.

Hence the sales offer. As Ligman notes, though, those discount calculations "are based on estimated retail prices. Reseller prices may vary." Fifty percent off seems enticing, but small to medium-sized businesses may want to crunch their numbers first, particularly if they're emerging into the first quarter of this year a little cash-strapped.