Soon, among your usual utility bills of electricity, water, gas, telecom, could be a new addition, software. Microsoft has come up with a new subscription model, where instead of outright buying a license to use the software, consumers can subscribe to use it. A monthly or annual subscription charge has to be paid by the user (subscriber) to continue using the product.

This scheme for now covers products such as Microsoft Office and One Care security software. Analysts are already beginning to predict this will be Microsoft's next big business model which will fuel its growth in the years to come. There's much in store for both consumers and the company.

If you're eager to get your hands on Windows XP's third service pack you'll be pleased to hear that the first release candidate is now available for download from here. As this is not a final version it is recommended that you do not install this on your primary Windows installation, although it should be fairly stable and secure. Microsoft has also released the final version of Office 2007 Service Pack 1, available for download from this page, which includes a number of stability, performance and security updates.

While Microsoft is working very hard to make a good service pack for Windows Vista, it's not the only thing they're working on. Microsoft is reportedly working hard on Service Pack 1 for Microsoft Office 2007. Due for release on this month's "Patch Tuesday", or December 11th, the service pack was created mainly based on consumer feedback. While Microsoft is mostly very "tight-lipped" about what exactly is going to be in the service pack, there are a couple confirmed features:

• Improved support for VSTO v3
• Better Object Model documentation for coding
• Improved support for .NET v3.5
• PowerPoint animated text has been upgraded
• Compatibility issues with previous Office file formats have been corrected
• Changes have been made to DirectX video overlay