Tony Scott at SIMposium convention in downtown Seattle.

Remember that crush of demand for public released of Windows 7 Beta Build 7000? didn’t go as smooth as initially planned. Microsoft was in fact ready for overwhelming Windows 7 Beta demand for public availability date (January 9). However, it didn’t go as smooth as initially planned; Microsoft was taken by surprise with automated bots designed to grab Build 7000 on seemingly scarce supply; Shared by Microsoft CIO Tony Scott, at Society for Information Management's convention in Seattle. "Some people had gone out and created these bots to download the beta," he said. "We didn't anticipate that they were going to do that. We did a clever marketing thing that said, there's only limited quantities available. The bot guys figured that out and decided they were going to get in early and get part of the limited quantities." He joked that it was one of those rare moments in marketing when a "while supplies last" message actually stirs people to action.