• Windows 7 Wallpapers
• Vista Wallpapers
• Windows Wallpapers

Sure, if you really pushed the Softies, you could get someone to admit there might be a feature or two — like Direct Access VPN-less connectivity or Branche Cache support – that would appeal to enterprise users. But it definitely hasn’t been a big theme for Microsoft so far.

(I guess if your closest OS competitor — if you don’t count pirated copies and older versions of Windows — is Apple, focusing the conversation around consumers instead of business users makes sense.)

On March 4, Microsoft officials shifted the Windows 7 marketing machine to the business side of the house. Via a posting to the Windows Team blog, Gavriella Schuster, Microsoft Senior Director for Windows Commercial Product Management, highlighted the process and planning behind Windows 7 Enterprise.

Schuster said that Microsoft spent six months analyzing enterprise trends and doing planning around how Windows 7 would address business-users’ concerns before the Windows team did any coding.

“We brought (just a little over 100 business-focused) customers in during our envisioning an dplanning process,” she told me. These 100 — with whom Microsoft has shared alpha and beta product builds — include about 30 who comprise Microsoft’s Desktop Advisory Council. The DAC participants come from a wide variety of vertical industries. They are supplemented by OEMs, ISVs and about 30 Technology Adoption Program (TAP) customers who also have provided input on the enterprise features for Windows 7, Schuster said. There are also a number of testers who Microsoft labels as “First Wave” program participants who are deploying Windows 7 today.