Microsoft Armed and Equipt

Prepare ye for the coming of the new Microsoft.(MSFT Quote)

For some, it's fun to trash new Microsoft products like Windows Vista and talk up hip new productivity tools such as Apple (AAPL Quote) iPhones and Google (GOOG Quote)Apps. But we here in the world of the little man know better: Eventually these other offerings may grow to be a serious threat to Microsoft, but when it comes to the tools small businesses use to keep running, our business is still Microsoft's to lose.

Just look at the numbers: For all the breathless marketing of the iPhone and the Mac, as of earlier this summer, iPhone subscribers totaled just 2.5 million, company executives said, and the share of the Apple operating system was only 7.5 percent of the total, according to Net Applications, the Aliso Viejo, Calif.-based Web applications developer that tracks operating system deployment.

Compare that to 91 percent of the market Microsoft controls in operating systems and the roughly 240 million cell-phone subscribers in the U.S. That makes Apple the Isuzu of the small-business computer market: a nice company making a decent product, but hardly a Toyota or GM.

So when Bill Gates -- sorry, Steve Ballmer & Co. -- shows up with not only a new product, but a new way to sell that product, I'm all ears. And so should you.

Earlier this summer, Microsoft quietly rolled out just such an offering. It is a new riff on its ubiquitous Microsoft Office 2007 productivity suite called Equipt. This product packages the business software you know: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and others, with ones you may not -- OneCare, OneNote, and Microsoft Live WorkSpace software that manages your computer's security, organizes your thoughts and allows you to collaborate online -- and makes them available by subscription.