Depends on what you want it to do... I have Fritz, which is a nice program with a lot of features. For a new person, maybe not so important (-And the thing kills me, which makes me not want to play it often)
I highly suggest you try pogo.com. Its free and its a great place to go to play against others, and watch better people play. You get ranked up or down as you play people of higher or lower ranks. So once you have played enough to get your rank assessed, it will help you find someone to play at your own skill level. There is always a large group available to play. Or you can play a computer opponent. The big bonus of this is that as you play, you accrue tokens then you can put them up for a raffle to win real cash... all in all a great website.
There is a book I read a while back that really helped me get better its called Complete Book of Chess Strategy: Grandmaster Techniques from A to Z . Once the fundamentals are down, this helped shape the strategy for me.
-Tony
