TOKYO (Dow Jones/AP) - Microsoft Corp. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer on Monday touted the company's plans to target the market for server software allowing voice conversations and video conferencing over Internet networks.

"We are going to enter the voice over IP market (in) the beginning of next year," Ballmer said at a Microsoft conference in Tokyo. Voice over Internet protocol, or VoIP, involves technologies allowing computer users to make telephone calls with their Internet connections.

While Microsoft has previously released various software with VoIP functionality, Ballmer said it would now be incorporated across the company's operating system, desktop applications and server software. He added that it would be unified with e-mail, video and instant messaging.

Ballmer also vowed that there would never be another long delay in the release of new versions of its flagship Windows operating system software like the one Microsoft has experienced with Vista.

"We will never have a five-year gap between releases again," Ballmer said.

The software behemoth released the corporate version of its new Windows Vista operating system, the first new version in five years, this month for corporate users, and is due to release it for consumers in January. Its new Office suite of desktop applications and various corporate server software are being released on a similar schedule.

Ballmer said Microsoft will launch a major new program in Japan to promote the use of its products among small and medium businesses, with an additional investment in the "tens of millions of dollars."

Microsoft said the new Japanese program would include the opening of four new Microsoft stores nationwide bringing the total to 11 by the end of 2007.

The Redmond, Wash.-based company, whose business in Japan goes back 20 years, also said it would conduct a nationwide bus tour to promote its products and services.