5 Things Microsoft Must Do To Reclaim Its Mojo In 2008

Will 2008 be a challenge for Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)? That's not the message one would necessarily glean from an examination of the just-ended year. Microsoft had a solid 2007. In its last full quarter of the calendar year, sales were up 27% and profits jumped 23% percent. The company could also boast that it sold twice as many copies of its new Windows Vista operating system in the weeks following Vista's January launch than it did copies of Windows XP during XP's honeymoon period.

There were other triumphs as well. On the consumer entertainment front, the company's Xbox 360 franchise enjoyed a massive boost from the September release of the smash hit game Halo 3. In the courtroom, a judge in August overturned a $1.5 billion judgment against Microsoft that had been awarded to Alcatel-Lucent.