Some readers may have gleaned from various news sources that the next piece of code to emerge from Microsoft's heaving software foundries will not be a finished product at all. No change there, I hear the cynics cry, but this is different. The company has announced that beta versions of Windows 2000 will be sold for £45 + VAT or £55 + VAT a time, depending on the version. This is called the Corporate Preview Programme, and is, according to Microsoft, intended to provide 'the tools and resources for customers to work with their solution providers to ensure an effective and thorough evaluation of Windows 2000'. And not to make extra cash during the software development process while simultaneously boosting brand awareness and accelerating the customer's upgrade cycle. No no, not at all.

In the past, beta (i.e. unfinished and usually bug-ridden) copies of software products have been distributed by developers to trusted users so that the developers can get far wider feedback and better bug reports. All very sensible. But to charge users for the privilege of doing the testing is unprecedented. Microsoft is a popular target for abuse and criticism in the press. Not necessarily for its products, which are no worse than those of any other Windows application developer, but for its somewhat brutal marketing strategies. But the company knows what it's doing, and it also knows that many of the people who complain vociferously will still be near the front of the queue for the Windows 2000 beta. Just as some of those who were 'offended' by The Sun's recent publication of Sophie Rhys-Jones' blurred breasts will continue to buy the paper exactly because it dishes the dirt on the private lives of the rich and famous.

But you have to wonder just how far such strategies can go. Not the publication of photographs of mammary glands, but the process of marketing and selling products that are known to be incomplete and somewhat less than fully-functioning. Picture, for example, Ford bringing out a new car that has an engine and bodyshell but no gearbox or steering wheel. "Ah", says Ford, "This allows our customers to prepare for the full retail version, but without worrying about actually going anywhere, especially round corners. And the car is 30 percent cheaper than the finished model, after all." Or perhaps you'd like a half-price 30-inch, wide-screen, digital stereo television set from Sony that can only pick up Channel 5 and occasionally catches fire? In fact, if this becomes a trend, there will soon be no need to develop new software at all. Developers can just keep announcing the next new product and shipping retail boxes containing nothing but an upgrade voucher for the next release, at fifty quid a time.

There is a serious point to all this. If the business world starts using software that not only may have bugs in, but is absolutely guaranteed not to be fully functional, all Hell could break loose. Especially as the use of beta software would absolve the developers of any technical support responsibilities. That hopefully won't happen this time round, but it's a step in the wrong direction. Windows is not Unix; the development process is, and must be, very different.

I am genuinely impressed by this new marketing strategy. In fact, in the near future, IT Reviews will be setting up a members-only site where 20,000 different products will be reviewed in depth every week. To become a privileged member of this scheme at a special discounted rate, send a cheque for £100 made out to 'CASH' to the usual address. And don't hold your breath.