It’s all in the name — or possibly not, in Microsoft’s case. The software behemoth announced Monday that it will share a pre-beta, developer-only release of Windows 7, the successor to Windows Vista, at the Product Developers Conference on Oct. 25 and at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference on Nov. 7.

The anticipated rollout of Microsoft’s latest operating system isn’t what’s creating the buzz, but the name Microsoft has given it.

Microsoft is naming its the product Windows 7 considering it’s the seventh release, according to Mike Nash, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Windows product management. “Simply put, that is the seventh release of Windows, so therefore Windows 7 just makes sense,” he said.

It’s About Simplicity

Microsoft decided to do away with names such as Vista and XP for its operating system and additionally did away with dates, such as Windows 98.

“The decision to use the name Windows 7 is about simplicity,” Nash

said. “And since we do not ship new versions of Windows every year, using a term did not manufacture sense.”

“Likewise, coming up with an all-new “aspirational” name does not do justice to what we are trying to achieve, which is to stay firmly rooted in our aspirations for Windows Vista, while evolving and refining the substantial investments in platform technology in Windows Vista into the next generation of Windows,” Nash added.

Public Bewildered

Microsoft’s decision has confused the public for two reasons.

First, the cipher name for the new Windows version was, well, Windows 7. In the past, Microsoft used cipher names that somehow connected with the latest product. For instance, Windows XP’s cipher name was Whistler, after the British Columbia area where design retreats were held. Millennium was the cipher name for Windows ME or Millennium Edition, and Longhorn was used for Windows Vista, named after the Longhorn Bar…

Original post by dhiram