Qualified Microsoft engineers have been sent free whoopee cushions from the Beast of Redmond to encourage them to take Windows 2000 certification.

Proof, were it needed, that the MS marketing department knows no boundaries ("If it breathes, send it a Microsoft-branded bauble"). In fact, it wasn't just qualified engineers (anyone that had taken an MCP exam will do) and it wasn't strictly a whoopee cushion, but that's what one of our readers has chosen to use it as.

Mrs Dew decided not to take the remaining four of six MCP exams for NT4, but informed us that she received a cardboard box with a Win2000 brochure and a clear-plastic inflatable seat cushion with "Remember to sit the Microsoft Windows 2000 exams" printed on it. Now isn't that touching? And, of course, up to the usual witty play-on-words standard that we have come to expect from Microsoft.

This is a prime example of that famous direct marketing we've been hearing so much about in recent years. And it has fulfilled ever aspect of this targeted approach: it has been expensive, unnecessary, tacky and sent to precisely the wrong person. Outstanding. ®