The Windows name: Is there special significance to '7?'

By Scott M. Fulton, III, BetaNews

October 15, 2008, 1:11 PM

On Monday, Microsoft confirmed that its nomenclature for Windows marketing will revert to an earlier time, when numbers were enough to convey meaning. Now, already, the company is having to explain its own logic and its numerology.

It could, for all intents and purposes, just be a number. But previous editions of Windows, including the one we're on now, have been given so-called "aspirational names" whose significance and symbology were the subject of some sustained gushing from Microsoft's marketing department in the past.

So why go back to a number, after having spent some time with years and then with letters and, from time to time, with aspirational sounds (as much as you might like, you can't forget "Me")? Logic might tell you, at first, the reason has to do with a need for Microsoft to reclaim a "back-to-basics" strategy, for an ad platform that, some are now appearing to admit, may have gotten sidetracked -- especially against Apple's very successful "I'm a Mac" campaign.

But as a blog post from corporate vice president Mike Nash this morning points out, in the interest of transparency and full disclosure, simple logic isn't the reason for the new, simpler nomenclature. Nash recalls a lesson the company learned with issuing an internal version number for Windows XP as "5.1," indicating it was an upgrade from Windows 2000's "5.0."

"We also had the lesson reinforced when we applied the version number in the Windows Vista code as Windows 6.0 -- that changing basic version numbers can cause application compatibility issues," Nash wrote. "So we decided to ship the Windows 7 code as Windows 6.1, which is what you will see in the actual version of the product in cmd.exe or computer properties."

It's not that "7" hasn't already proven itself a fairly successful number when it comes to marketing.

So it's really Windows 6.1. Does that mean that Microsoft's calling it "7" is an indication that it's trying to treat the new Windows as more than it really is under the surface? No, said Nash, pre-empting the inevitable question, promising that Win7 will be a new and significant enhancement over Vista that truly merits the repositioning of it as the "seventh version of the operating system" in the public's mind...if not in Windows' own registry.

What do you suppose the significance of "Windows 7" truly is for Microsoft and for the users of Windows? Rather than bloviate about it myself, I thought this time I should ask you, the readers of BetaNews, to share your own thoughts. What's in a "7?"