Last year many of you may have participated in the Visual Studio 2005 Beta Experience program. This year, the Microsoft EMEA team are running another Beta Experience program for Vista and Office 12 - so if you want to be the first to know about all the news on these beta programs, sign up to the new Beta Experience program.

At the moment the team is running a competition - guess the date of release of final product launch of Vista and you can win prizes. First prize is an all-expense paid trip (ticket, flights, accommodation) to the actual launch event in the US (presumably they will know when that is and whether you have won well in advance! :). You can also win Xbox360s etc. So well worth it giving it a whirl!

The betas aren't available yet - but in the meantime, you'll get a regular beta experience newsletter with tech updates on both the new products.