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Speaking at his first CES keynote, a position he took over from Bill Gates, Ballmer announced that the beta will be made available to technical testers immediately, with a general release slated for Friday.

Ballmer promised that Windows 7 will be the "best version of Windows ever", and in so doing tacitly acknowledged some of the flaws of its predecessor, Windows Vista.

"We are putting in all the right ingredients, simplicity, reliability and speed, and working hard to get it right and to get it ready," said Ballmer.

A quick demonstration followed, showing off the new home networking wizard that should allow

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users to easily access files on other computers in their home.

A company representative also ran through a demonstration showing off the multitouch interface, much to the delight of the overwhelmingly pro-Microsoft audience.

Windows 7 has generated a great deal of buzz since been displayed at the Professional Developers Conference in October. Alongside, a new dock-style interface, Microsoft claims that Windows 7 will have faster boot times, fewer security alerts, and better power management tools, helping to improve battery life on laptops.

Aside from the Windows 7 annoucement, Ballmer's first keynote was remarkable only for how smoothly he stepped into Gates' shoes. Indeed, when dwelling on how new interfaces such as touch and speech would one day become the standard, Ballmer almost seemed to be channelling his former boss.

"Speech, gestures, and handwriting will be ways that we interact. The UIs will evolve to be more natural," he said, though he was combative when explaining how Windows fitted into this vision, "I believe windows will remain at the centre of people's technological solar system."

Ballmer also announced a deal with Dell, that will see the PC manufacturer place Microsoft's Live Search on every new PC and laptop it produces in the world. No further details of the deal were discussed.