Adobe Lightroom release date and price announced

Adobe announces Lightroom's release.
After a little more than a year of public beta testing, Adobe has just updated the product pages of their website to include the release date, packaging picture, and price of what's now known as Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.0.
Two things of note: the price which is identical to Apple's Aperture, US$299.00, and a limited time introductory offer of US$199.00, which will probably also serve as a thank you to participants of the beta programme.
In Europe, things differ slightly: availability is scheduled for March, with very similar, but not identical pricing: Lightroom is offered for 174 € excluding VAT until june 22nd. After that, the 'regular price' will be 249€ excluding VAT.
In the UK, the pricing and availability are: £125 before April 30, and £175 after, with a release date of late February.
In the past, Adobe has been known to offer aggressive pricing on new software, notably inDesign which was launched to compete head on against QuarkXPress.
It's good to see that software specifically designed for photo enthusiasts and pro photographers are now numerous. A clear sign that large software companies are taking the sales figures of digital SLRs (which have seen a 1000% growth between 2003 and today) seriously.
For those interested in the evolution of digital photography, the next big event is the Photo Marketing Association (PMA) International Convention and Trade Show, probably the most important trade show in the world, and always the host of many important announcements. The PMA runs March 8 through 11 in Las Vegas. Apple, Adobe and all the other photographic software makers will be there.