Here's some info from the Swatch website:

"By dividing the 24 hours of the day into 1,000 "beats", Swatch has created a time that transcends time zones. Each beat is equivalent to 1 minute 26.4 seconds and @000 is the same as midnight in Switzerland (guess where this was made!)"

I assume that it was meant as a convenient way to link up with people around the world at the same time. For example, as I type this (at 11.24 pm Australian Eastern Summer Time) Swatch time is 600 everywhere in the world).

I haven't used it for this purpose yet -- has anybody?