Now that Microsoft has finalised Windows Vista's six editions, the challenge at hand for the company is to encourage customers to upgrade once the new operating system is available. And that challenge is nothing to sneeze at, customers and analysts say. According to them, Microsoft faces a variety of hurdles that could deter upgrades to Vista, which is expected to ship towards the end of the year.

One major roadblock might be the sheer number of editions of Vista expected to be available at launch, says Joe Wilcox, analyst at JupiterResearch. Microsoft's last major Windows upgrade, Windows XP, launched with only two editions, Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional, he says. XP is now available in five editions, but the others - Media Center Edition, Tablet PC Edition and Professional x64 Edition - were added after launch.

Microsoft has already identified what it calls a "good" problem among customers who purchase Windows' client version, Wilcox says. That problem is that customers think the version of Windows they currently have is good enough for what they want to achieve with their computer, so they see little or no reason to upgrade to the latest and greatest OS. Complicating matters with several editions is not the ideal way to inspire customers to upgrade, he says.