Microsoft May Offer Holiday Vista Discounts

Microsoft Corp. is considering discounts or other promotions during the holidays to entice consumers to upgrade their personal computers with Windows Vista, even though the new operating system isn’t due to hit store shelves until January at the earliest.

Any end-of-the-year effort to spur PC purchases would probably please many retailers and computer manufacturers, which fear disappointing sales during the crucial holiday season because consumers could wait for the highly anticipated and long-delayed software.

Separately, Microsoft has struck a deal to provide advertising for social networking site Facebook in one of the first high-profile agreements for the software maker’s online advertising platform. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.