At the company's Business Summit Wednesday, Microsoft formally unveiled a new accounting software package aimed at small and midsize businesses. Small Business Accounting 2006 is Microsoft's first shot at unseating market leader Intuit, which recently completed work on QuickBooks 2006.

On its own, Small Business Accounting 2006 will run $179.99 USD before a $30 mail-in rebate. A larger Small Business Management bundle adds the four Office System components -- Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint -- for $569.99 USD, with an upgrade available for $399.99 USD. A $100 mail-in rebate is available for the full package.

Integration with Office will be a key feature of Small Business Accounting, Microsoft says, which may give it a leg up over its QuickBooks rival. Microsoft is also going after customers who do not use an accounting package at all, opting for Excel instead.

But Intuit has worked hard on QuickBooks 2006 and claims the new release represents the most significant upgrade since the software launched in 1992. The company has refocused QuickBooks by simplifying views of company data and combining tasks, thus reducing the need to hop from screen to screen.

QuickBooks 2006 is slated to launch in November, but Intuit is not yet talking pricing - perhaps waiting for Microsoft to take the first step.

Small Business Accounting 2006 is just once piece of Microsoft's new small business efforts, which include a new integrated architecture built atop Windows Server dubbed "Centro" and a rebranding of Microsoft's disparate business products as "Dynamics."