Microsoft Corporation plans to make ASP.NET Atlas, its AJAX development tool, a key element of its Web 2.0 strategy. Microsoft plans to announce a Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the AJAX tool with a Go-Live license. This will allow developers to start building and deploying new Atlas applications. They will also be able to extend the applications that they can redistribute on a commercial basis. In the past, Go-Live licenses have generally been associated with beta versions of products. Customers have been requesting a Go-Live license for some time, however, and Microsoft officials believe their Atlas code is stable enough to allow this. Microsoft is also expected to demonstrate its Expression suite of design tools soon. The company has released CTPs for Expression Interactive Designer and Expression Graphic Designer. It will not provide a CTP for Expression Web Designer immediately. The company is reviewing whether it should issue betas for testing and development as well. It may decide to move to a new model in which product groups would release more frequent, but less thoroughly tested, builds. This is the approach that open-source developers use. Microsoft's Engineering Excellence unit is providing oversight of a project designed to reengineer the way that software is developed. A basic change in Microsoft's approach could use major product units in doing more virtual teaming across divisional lines. The teams will also rely on CTPs rather than betas to make the product development and testing cycle faster.