Reality Check for Vista

Updated from 6:03 p.m. EST

Microsoft(MSFT Quote) CEO Steve Ballmer threw a bit of cold water on expectations that the new version of Windows will cause revenue to skyrocket in the near future.

"We're driving it [Vista] hard, but some people have gotten a little over-excited," he told analysts at a meeting in New York late Thursday. He clearly sees major revenue gains flowing from Vista and the new version of Office, but his view of the timing is apparently a bit more conservative than that of a number of analysts.

Ballmer was by no means bearish during his presentation, and he relieved Wall Street of one major worry, saying that Microsoft will slow spending growth in fiscal 2008. The software giant ratcheted spending by $2.7 billion in 2007; spending in 2008, he said, "will be somewhat less, not extremely less." ...