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Developed in partnership with Formjet Innovations, the 'Home Office' pack will cost £16.99 and is compatible with Microsoft Word, Excel and Access.

The Home Office suite is part of a new range of seven software products from Woolworths. The other titles include: Internet Security for protection against identity theft, viruses, spyware, hackers and other Net threats (RRP £24.99); an anti-virus and firewall package with TruPrevent Technologies (RRP £5.99 for six months' cover; £9.99 for 12 months cover); a photo editor for editing and improving photos and saving as PDF (RRP £9.99); Back-up software (RRP £19.99); and Braintastic, an 'edutainment' package that allows parents to help children improve their literacy and numeracy skills (RRP £14.99).

The range will be available in 160 large

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Woolworths stores and online at woolworths.co.uk. Woolworths has set-up a dedicated website at woolworthssoftware.com to provide more information and 24-hour technical support.

Woolworths software buyer Gerry Berkley said that the company is opening up the software market to everyone by selling products at affordable prices.

'This is not cutting-edge computer technology,' he said. 'This is a simple, easy to use software package that will do everything that most home PC-users need.

'The majority of people use only a fraction of the functionality of market leading products, so why pay such a high price, when you can buy our product and get what you want for less money?'

Formjet is also the company behind Tesco's relatively recent foray into the software market, offering a similar range of home-use applications - Tesco goes into the software business.

In March of 2006, Tesco also announced it would begin selling Apple kit in 300 stores across the UK, using the same branding and point-of-sale display material that Apple uses in its own retail stores.