A new computer software, Microsoft XP, an improvement of Microsoft '97 and '2000, was on Wednesday introduced on the Ghanaian market.

Microsoft Corporation of the United States released the product, accessible on a compact disk, to the market on May 31.

At a press conference in Accra to launch the new product, Mrs Patricia Konan, Enterprise Group Manager for Microsoft, West Africa, said the main feature of the new software is its ability to prevent piracy.

She said about 90 per cent of software produced are pirated by the end-users and called on the media to help fight piracy.

"Piracy of software has made a lot of governments lose revenue, producers do not earn enough from their investment and the rate of piracy does not help to create employment in most countries."

Mrs Konan said the new software is able to translate a document from one language into another and it is available in more that 30 languages.

It also has the potential to enhance efficiency in offices, she said, adding: "It is of benefit to everyone in the workplace and provides unique personal, collaborative and organisational experiences."

One is able to open several e-mail accounts at the same time and has a voice-backed Excel programme, she said.

Mrs Konan said another special feature of the new product is its 'smart tag' that enables linkage of the user input in office applications to other business applications.

"This enables a user to have much easier access to data," she said.

She said rather than moving between multiple applications- and starting from the beginning in each application- smart tags help add context by passing data from office to other applications, based on what the user is reading, reviewing or typing.

Mrs Konan said this technology puts power and convenience at the hands of users by reacting to their needs as they work. In addition developers can create custom smart tags for organisations to automatically link business application.