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It's been a long time in the making but Microsoft's new computer operating system was launched today and within twelve months is expected to be in use on hundreds of millions of pcs' around the world, its called Windows Vista, the company's chairman Bill Gates insisted that that it sets new levels of security but some experts say it is too expensive and warned that it may not be compatible with many existing computers.

Earlier today, I went along to meet the Microsoft Chairman at the British Library where his new software was officially unveiled and I asked him about the tougher competition he now faces from much younger companies.

"We've had lots of exciting stories about Google and YouTube and My Space and all the rest of it and you know, it's like some people to say, well Microsoft maybe isn't the innovative, energizing institution it once was, maybe its lost its edge, have you lost your edge"?

"Well throughout the history of Microsoft that question has come up because in the world of technology you often have a leader who gets replaced, you've always got to obsolete your old products, you got to make something that's dramatically better, we have a range of competitors doing good things including Google and Search and the direction of combining the power of your local pc together with great services in the internet, thats a direction we believe in very much."

"I must ask you about the price that's a constant feature of the debate in Britain about levels of consumer costs. Why will the British consumer pay more for this than the American consumer for Vista"

"Well we try to keep our prices largely in line from country to country, and i don't need actually, i'm ____ how the exchange rate may have made that drift but we generally have a roll by price, we do get some thing for things can get a bit out of alignment as currencies go up or down"

" But you wouldn't expect to see a big difference"

"Our goal across our product line is to largely have a global way at looking at things"

"As you know you're so powerful, you're so influential it antagonizes people. People see you as ______competitive in some circumstances, does that bother you?"

"Microsoft has been very successful and so we're held to a very high standard for the quality of our products, for working on security issues, for creating a platform for innovation, for other people, for inoperability with other systems and its important that we live up to those expectations. We're a company that's admired probably as much as any on the planet and when we fall short, we're committed to do better"

"To lots of our viewers wondering today what Bill Gates, the great innovator was thinking about within 10, 20 years time, How will we be interacting with technology than you think"

" Well ten years is a long time in the technology business, today, kids are still mostly using paper textbooks and I say in ten years we should have changed that so that they have an inexpensive tablet type device that lets the teacher customize things that is far more interactive and they don't have nearly as much to carry around and yet hopefully the cost of that is not much more than the textbooks ____, so thats a big change"

"Mr. Gates, thank you for talking to us"

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