ureadit

To know me is to know that I am very word-oriented. I do not let words go by me without taking notice of how silly they can be, especially when the words come from Big Corporations. So today I focus my attention on Microsoft. Specifically, I examine the inconsistencies and overall silliness in naming their software.

 

Back in the 1990s, Microsoft established and solidified their dominance in PC Operating Systems. With their release of Windows versions 1.0, 2.0 and then 3.0, they captured the Graphical User Interface (GUI) market and convinced most PC owners to install and use their simple point-and-click interface. By the time they released Windows 3.1, their dominance was unquestioned.  So you’d think that the next version would be called Windows 4.0, right? Nope. Someone in the Marketing department abruptly decided to break with tradition and call the next version “Windows 95”.  The decision to use the term “95” was meant to reference the last two digits of the year in which the software was released, rather than a perfectly logical and consecutive numbering scheme. Perhaps it seemed like a clever idea at the time. So in keeping with this new tradition with the next Windows release in 1998, the software was called, unsurprisingly, “Windows 98.”  And then, shock and awe struck, and the century turned over. What would they call the next release?  Windows 00? Suddenly, naming software versions after the last two digits of the year wasn’t so clever anymore.

 

On the other end of the Microsoft powerhouse where they made a beefier version of Operating Systems for business users, things were just as dysfunctional.  Starting in 1993, Microsoft released their “NT” Operating System for business users.  The letters “NT” stood for “New Technology.” Using the letters “NT” seemed like yet another clever idea at the time, but there is an inherent marketing problem with attaching the word “New” to any product. Namely, what do you do when “New” becomes “Old?” Like the turning of the century, “New” turns to “Old” with a disturbing regularity.  The cure? Microsoft went back to calling these advanced Operating Systems by referencing the year in which they were released; only this time, some Einstein in the Marketing department figured that they should use the entire four digits of the year to refer to the software version. Alas, “Windows 2000” was born, and subsequent versions, “Windows Server 2003”, “Windows Server 2008”, and now … uh … “Windows 7.” Hmmmm …

 

So whatever happened to NT? As a technology, it’s still alive and well.  The hard work that went into building NT was utilized in the Windows 2XXX Operating Systems, though Microsoft Marketing sort of buried the “NT” name. It’s not completely gone, however. You can still see it when you boot up Windows Server 200X. The initial screen advertises the version of the Operating System by saying, “Windows Server 2003. Built on NT Technology.” Which looks fine until you remember that “NT” stands for “New Technology,” and thus the phrase, “Built on NT Technology” becomes, “Built on New Technology Technology.”

 

I’m waiting for someone in Microsoft’s Marketing department to release the next generation of Operating Systems by saying, “Built on New NT Technology,” which translates to, “Built on New New Technology Technology.”

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