I don’t really mind spending the extra money just so long as I am getting something that reflects my wants and needs. To be honest, I would be interested to see what Microsoft has in mind.

Microsoft is planning more expensive versions of Office and Windows during the next few years, to sustain growth and mitigate customer opposition to upgrades. Chief executive Steve Ballmer said Thursday that Microsoft wants to increase Office revenues fourfold by the end of the decade, with a new “Office Server” product and more expensive client access fees key to the strategy.

Alongside the new Office Server category, Microsoft is also developing a Premium edition of Office, and an “enterprise edition” of Windows Vista, the delayed Windows client that Windows client senior vice president Will Poole said would ship during the 2006 holiday season.

But likely to prove controversial is Microsoft intention to charge users an additional “premium” client access licenses (CAL) to use these higher-end versions of Office and Windows. Ballmer and other executives were light on specifics today, although in the Office market at least Microsoft seems to be going beyond its current high-end edition of Office Professional Edition, which is priced at $388.49 per copy. [Read the rest]