Microsoft has officially unveiled its Windows Vista operating system and Office 2007 productivity suite to consumers at a company event in New York.
The software will be available in 17 languages in retail locations across 70 countries starting Tuesday 30 January.
Several computer retail stores plan on opening earlier than usual on Tuesday morning to provide shoppers access to the software. A few shops in the US will open their doors to eager shoppers for a midnight sale on Monday, but the release isn't expected to garner the same level of attention that the launch of the Nintendo Wii or Sony's PS3 gaming consoles generated last fall.
The new software kicks off a "new era of personal computing", claimed Microsoft. The software developer highlighted that both applications provide a new user interface that is designed to make the software easier to use for digital media and entertainment such as photos and videos .
"These are the most amazing versions of Windows and Office ever," boasted Microsoft chief executive Steve Jobs.
As one of the software's most important new features, Windows Vista is expected to do a much better job at protecting its users from online threats than earlier versions did. User accounts by default will run in a low privilege mode that limits the amount of damage that an attacker can do. Users also receive clear warnings whenever an application attempts to access potentially harmful services.
Windows Vista was made available to large enterprises last November.
Dell on Saturday started taking orders for new desktop and notebook computers running Vista. The company said that the sales volume of several thousand systems exceeded expectations.
Consumers who purchased new computers with Windows XP since November are entitled to a free or discounted software upgrade.
The launch of Windows Vista has been delayed numerous times. It has taken Microsoft engineers more than five years since the unveiling of Windows XP in October 2001 to develop the software.