Greetings Readers!

In case you haven’t heard, Microsoft has announced that the name of Windows 7 will be… Windows 7.  Sounds fancy doesn’t it?

In the announcement, they listed some reasons why they went with the name, such as not wanting to go with a year because its not a yearly release and that an aspirational name like Vista wouldn’t do the new OS justice.  Since this is the seventh release of Windows, they say that Windows 7 just makes sense.

While that logic would have made sense if they had been going with this naming scheme from the beginning, the average consumer won’t give any thought to this being the 7th Windows OS.  My theory?  I think the marketing department was on vacation when this decision was made after thier latest batch of ‘I’m a PC’ commercials which still don’t make sense.

This is just the latest example showing how out-of-touch Microsoft really is when it comes to branding a widely used product.  Microsoft needs to get some marketing people with a little bit of creativity and that actually understand the average consumer.  Calling the new OS Windows XP 2.0 would have been a better idea since they are looking to put Vista behind them and people already love the experience of XP rather than Vista.  Personally, I will always be a fan of the Longhorn name until the day I die.

The first thing people will hear about the new OS is its name, so it needs to be something that inspires curiosity and confidence at the same time.  While the name certainly isn’t everything, it is probably the single most important thing from a marketing standpoint.  Until the new Windows OS can prove itself, it will have to rely on marketing, something that is already very restricted with this name choice.

Only time will tell if this is a good move or not, but I’m predicting this merely be the first mistake of the new operating system.

Do you think this is a good name?  Do you have other ideas for names?  If so, leave a comment!