Microsoft sticks with 'Windows 7' for next OS

Microsoft Corp. announced today that the code name for its next operating system, Windows 7, will be the product's official name.

Mike Nash, vice president of Windows product management, said the company was sticking with the label for simplicity's sake. "Simply put, this is the seventh release of Windows, so therefore 'Windows 7' just makes sense," Nash wrote in Microsoft's Vista blog on Monday.

After noting that Microsoft has at times stuck a date on the OS -- Windows 2000 was the last -- Nash said that didn't make sense this time. "We do not ship new versions of Windows every year," Nash said. "Likewise, coming up with an all-new 'aspirational' name [like Windows XP] 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 Vista into the next generation of Windows."

Some Windows watchers, however, questioned Nash's claim that Windows 7 would be the seventh iteration of the OS. The AeroXperience blog counted seven as of Windows Vista, and eight if the consumer-oriented Windows Millennium was included. However, only if kernel revisions are tallied, XP wasn't counted -- and Windows kernel was incremented to 7.0 for Windows 7 -- would that work, the blog argued.
According to the Windows timeline on Wikipedia, XP's kernel is tagged as 5.1, and Vista's as 6.0.

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