Microsoft Aims To See Green With "Green'; Planting Seed For Big Thrust?; Some see Project Green, software for the midmarket, as entry to enterprise field.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)

Byline: J. BONASIA

The secretive plan is code-named Project Green.

Microsoft Corp. says the name stems from a programmer's love of golf. Some analysts say the name hints at the green the company hopes to rake in.

The world's largest software maker is quietly at work on new software for small and midsize businesses. Project Green isn't due until 2006, but it has the industry buzzing with questions.

Is Microsoft's goal to dominate the midmarket as it does the desktop? Does Microsoft plan to use it as a steppingstone to the big-business market, one of the few fields it hasn't tackled? Or is Project Green simply a strategy to promote Microsoft's ambitious .Net platform for Web services?

The answer might be all of the above, analysts say. But clearly the first goal is to lead the small and midsize business software market, says Chris Alliegro of Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm.

Gaining such traction would surely help its Web services business, he says. But most intriguing is what this would mean for its big-business plans. If Project Green succeeds with midsize companies, then "all bets are off" in terms of the big-user enterprise market, says Alliegro.