charging for the privilege

given microsoft's decision to charge for the beta of office 2007, the uk reg analyzes the situation. essentially, M$ wants customers to pay for the right--no, the privilege--of testing an incomplete product and doing the admitted monopolist's job of software development.

OK, so it is only $1.50, but if this is still in the realm of genuine beta testing then the idea of asking people to pay to see how many bugs a vendor can generate is an idea that we must sincerely hope does not become endemic amongst the software development community.

the reg continues with a few slippery slopes of this beta program.

despite suffering recent difficulties, M$ continually demonstrates hypocritical pettiness a sense of techie elitism