Microsoft has extended its trial of a new low-price version of the Windows PC operating system to India, a country with one of the highest software piracy rates in the world.

The move marks a bold extension of a strategy that has also raised fundamental questions about Microsoft's ability to maintain its prices in the developed world. The trial price of the program in India is expected to be about $40. The software giant, like drugs companies that have come under pressure to reduce their prices in developing markets while trying to maintain higher prices elsewhere, must tread a fine line as it tries to reach potentially big new markets, analysts said. Russia was included in the trial this week.