Posing the biggest-ever challenge thus far for anti-virus companies with billions of dollars in annual revenue, software bigwig Microsoft Corp is set for a Tuesday launch of its free anti-malware service - Microsoft Security Essentials.

The Microsoft PC security service has been previewed by industry analysts, who opine that the features and quality of the service are equivalent to the anti-virus products from Symantec, McAfee and Trend Micro, which mostly charge nearly $40 per year for their services.

Microsoft said that a beta version of the product can be downloaded from its website on June 23, while a full version will be released later this year. Microsoft Security Essentials, which was code-named Morro, aims at offering users a free and comprehensive anti-malware - thereby enabling them to fight viruses, Trojans, botnets, spyware, and Internet worms. 

The new anti-malware service will not only protect the Windows XP and Windows Vista PCs of users, but will also give an added boost to the Microsoft’s forthcoming release of Windows 7 that will be available in October.

Even though PC industry analyst Roger Kay, of Endpoint Technologies Associates, said that the launch of Microsoft’s security product is “good news for consumers” and “bad news for competitors”, it needs to be noted that Microsoft’s offering only fights malicious software, and lacks other features like encryption, firewalls, data backup and parental controls.