SEATTLE (Bloomberg) — Microsoft Corp., whose Office word- processing, spreadsheet and e-mail programs dominate the market, said it completed a new version of the software and will release it to businesses this month and consumers in January.Office 2007 represents the product’s first major design overhaul in more than a decade. Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer will host an event on November 30 in New York to mark the business release of Office 2007 and Vista, the new version of the Windows operating system, Microsoft said in a statement on Monday.

The new Office includes features to help employees work together on projects, additions that Microsoft anticipates will help revive sales growth. The company’s biggest competitor is itself, said JupiterResearch analyst Joe Wilcox, since many customers use older versions of Office and are reluctant to upgrade. Even businesses that pay in advance for new versions of Office can be slow to adopt them, he said.

“Microsoft’s problem with Office isn’t a sales problem; it’s a deployment problem,” said Wilcox, who is based in Kensington, Maryland. “Forty percent of Office revenue comes from volume licensing, which means Microsoft has their money already. People have paid for Office 2007 already, but they won’t deploy it for years.”

Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, forecast sales from its Business Division, which come mainly from Office and related programs, will rise as much as nine percent in the fiscal year ending June 30. Most of that growth is expected in the latter half of that year, after Office 2007 is released. The unit’s sales rose 7.2 percent last year.

Ballmer said both Office 2007 and Windows Vista are on target to be released to consumers in January. Michael Silver, an analyst at Stamford, Connecticut-based Gartner Inc., estimates it will take at least 18 months for both programs to be used by ten percent of Windows and Office users. Office 2007 may reach that level faster than Vista, he said.

The new design may cause some companies to delay purchasing Office, Wilcox said, because they don’t want to have to retrain workers. In the new software, a ribbon at the top of the screen will change based on what the user is doing.

Among the largest companies, 23 percent plan to begin rolling out Office 2007 in the seven to 12 months following its release, Wilcox said, citing a JupiterResearch survey of more than 200 firms with over 10,000 workers.

With the new version, 10 applications, server programs and services have been added to the Office product line. Microsoft is trying to get companies to upgrade, select pricier Office packages and buy the new features. The company plans to sell eight different packages of Office 2007 software.