Microsoft said the new system, which is released to manufacturers and subscribers through the Internet, integrates for the first time programmes, servers and services and incorporates the Extensible Markup Languagestandard which would allow for easier data exchange between different technology users.

"It will develop a new wave of productivity benefits and provide great moments at work," beamed chairman Bill Gates in a recorded message.

Even more excited was the company's group program manager Andy Abbar, who was in Dubai for the launch, promising users a "10 to 15 percent increase" in worker productivity with the new system.

The launch took place on the sidelines of the Middle East's largest IT fair GITEX and ahead of its US premiere due to the time zone differences. Dubai is four hours in front of GMT.

Microsoft said it has incorporated enhanced Arabic features, applications and development tools into its new product.

Although the system was developed at its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, local expertise in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates was called on to develop the Arabic applications.

Arabic along with English and Japanese are Microsoft's three pilot languages, meaning that product development starts at the same time in these languages.

"We have an obligation to bridge the digital divide between the developed and emerging worlds," said Abbar.

One of the pilot users of office 2003 attending Tuesday's launch said he was "pleasantly surprised" by the speed of the product rollout and the ease of getting employees in his company to work on it compared with earlier Microsoft products.

"It is far better from anything they have launched before," said Ramesh Cidambi, senior information technology manager at Dubai Duty Free, which has about one thousand employees and has been a Microsoft customer since 1987.

Cidambi said there were problems with saving and exiting documents in the first trial of the product in May but that they were fixed in the second test run.

Another user, Fathi al-Sayed, who runs a cement factory in the UAE, said the main attraction of the new product for him will be the inclusion of the XML standard which would allow his customers, who operate on diverse systems, to enter and check the status of orders with ease through his company's website.

Since its humble beginnings in 1990 as a basic word processing program until its present incarnation as a "super productivity" tool Microsoft Office has managed to attract about 300 million licensed customers worldwide, according to the company which suggested that the number of unlicensed users was a lot bigger.

SPACE.WIRE