News
Making Windows an Experience
Microsoft to drive home the user/business "experience" with new product naming.
Microsoft announced Monday that it will rename its "Whistler" operating system update to "Windows XP." The company says the XP name is a result of abbreviating the word "experience," a word which has been prevalent in several keynote speeches made by Bill Gates and that has appeared in the company's annual report in reference to Windows and the .NET family of servers and development tools.
In a statement on its Web site, Microsoft calls Windows XP and Office XP "important steps toward the Microsoft .NET vision" designed to improve communications, mobility, help and support, entertainment, and create the "connected home."
The whole family of Windows operating systems software will bear the XP name, including Personal and Professional client versions, Server, Advanced Server, Datacenter Server, Embedded versions. Microsoft says that its Office suite will also bear the XP name in the next version.
Most the products that will bear the XP name upon release are in development or in beta testing. Microsoft expects to release Windows XP clients by the second half of this year, and Office XP within the next six months. Microsoft says it will unveil more details on Feb. 13.
For more information go to http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2001/Feb01/02-05NamingPR.asp.