Microsoft Recruiting For Windows 7 Small Biz Blitzkrieg

Earlier this week, Microsoft quietly unveiled its Windows 7 Small Business Ignite Program, which gives small businesses a chance to test out the Windows 7 Beta with guidance from Microsoft channel partners.

The program, details of which are scarce, appears to be aimed at convincing small businesses that, unlike Vista, Windows 7 won't actually destroy their businesses and ransack their homes. In other words, it's another effort to counteract entrenched negative views of Vista.

But despite the positive early returns on the Windows 7 beta, Microsoft faces enormous challenges in getting small businesses, many of which are perfectly content running their day-to-day operations on Windows XP, to justify spending for the upgrade to Windows 7. And that would be the case even if the economy weren't in a full-fledged meltdown mode.