Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, the 9th major release of Apple’s operating system, will be released to the Mac App Store next month. From July people from all over the world will be able to get the new Mac OS X version and enjoy the more than 200 innovative new features Mountain Lion introduces.

Here is what Apple’s Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing had to say about Mountain Lion:
“The pace of innovation on the Mac is amazing, OS X Mountain Lion comes just a year after the incredibly successful launch of Lion. With iCloud built right in and the new Notification Center, Messages, Dictation, Facebook integration and more, this is the best OS X yet.”

Upgrading from Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or Mac OS X 10.7 Lion to Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion will cost you $19.99. Customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system on or after June 11, 2012 will get Mountaion Lion for free. Please note that your Mac must have 8GB of available disk space and at least 2GB of RAM for Mountain Lion to run.

Upgrade to Mountain Lion this July and you will get to enjoy the following new features:

• iCloud integration – by using your iCloud account the operating system makes it easy to set up Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Messages, Reminders, and Notes.
• Messages – a brand new app that replaces iChat. With this app you can send messages, photos and videos from one Mac to another. Messages provides support for AIM, Jabber, Yahoo! Messenger and Google. A beta version of Messages is available for download on apple.com right now; the final version will be incorporated into Mountain Lion.
• Reminders and Notes – these are tools you can use to create and track to-dos across multiple devices.
• Game Center – assuming you’re not familiar with Game Center, it helps you find new games, challenge friends, and play live multiplayer games.
• Notification Center – displays notifications from Mail, Calendar, Messages, Reminders, system updates and third party apps.
• System-wide Sharing – easily share links, photos, videos, and other files.
• Twitter and Facebook integration – the popular micro-blogging site and the social networking site are integrated throughout Mountain Lion.
• AirPlay Mirroring - wirelessly send a secure 720p video stream from your Mac to an HDTV via Apple TV.
• Gatekeeper – a new security feature that helps you control which apps can be downloaded and installed on your machine.
• Dictation - dictation is built into the operation system.
• A faster Safari browser.

Additional information on Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion is available here.