Microsoft is piloting a subscription service for its Office product suite for the first time in the US.

The firm said that "Albany" was in beta mode. It would offer US consumers access to Office and other applications via a subscription service. The move is being seen as the latest effort of Microsoft to react to the changing software market. Microsoft said if it went ahead the service would launch before the end of 2008.

Meanwhile at the other end of the market and on the other side of the world, Microsoft and Novell announced an extension of their Linux interoperability deal in China. Microsoft is helping unsupported Linux users move to the enterprise level Suse distribution as supported by Novell. Under the extension of the agreement, SUSE Enterprise server and Windows compute cluster server will run in dual boot configurations.

The moves are further evidence that Microsoft is segmenting its sales approaches.