Large enterprises and Microsoft beta testers can look forward to getting earlier and more frequent access to software under development.
Executives for the Redmond, Wash., company, such as Eric Rudder, senior vice president of servers and tools, are pushing for a new policy in which software under development is made available early and often, much the way the first bits of "Longhorn," the next Windows release, were handed out at Microsoft"s Professional Developers Conference in October.
This desire is motivated by the delays of products such as Longhorn and "Yukon," the next version of SQL Server, and to help developers plan for and work on new projects.
Some Microsoft users said they would welcome such a move. "Having an earlier view of what is changing gives you time to think of the implications and opportunities of the changes as well as of the dangers or pitfalls, if there are any," said Brian Riley, senior programmer and analyst at a large U.S. health care services company.