"It takes away the need for building a lot of large-scale Web applications when you can componentize them on the employee desktop," Kerr said.

Windows Vista is set to ship by the end of the year.

Also during the combined event on Wednesday, the company showed a software product code-named, "Microsoft Motion," which is intended to evaluate capabilities in an organization's business architecture. The technology provides data on how a business is performing versus how a user wants it to perform.