14 DAY TRIAL // Windows server 2008 was until the past week known as Windows Server code-name Longhorn. Microsoft has kept quiet in relation to the final name of the product until the server operating system had reached the beta 3 stage. Following the availability of the first public milestone of the product, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, during his address at the 2007 edition of Microsoft's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC 2007) in Los Angeles, revealed that Windows Server 2008 was the final name of Longhorn.
Gates behaved as if no one had seen Windows Server 2008 coming: "The name for this product, we've been working hard thinking about it. Microsoft has a lot of different names for things. We played around with a couple different ideas, but what we're going to go with is pretty straightforward, I think you'd say. This will simply be called Windows Server 2008. I know it's a surprise for us to pick something so straightforward, but we thought that would be the best choice."
At the bottom of this article, I embedded a video fragment that is in fact a Microsoft Windows Server 2008 promo. It reveals a new marketing perspective over at the Redmond Company that comes with a healthy and welcomed dose of humor. It is also a valid view presenting an insight on how Microsoft came up with the name for Windows Server 2008.
You will be able to see Iain McDonald, Director of Windows Server Program Management, leading the Windows Server Division into the process of christening Longhorn. Names alternatives ranged from America's Next Top Server to Microsoft Server operating System with Graphical User Interface for Home, Small Business and Enterprise Use in Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Computing Environments. Obviously the last one was scrapped due to the fact that it failed to contain the word "Windows."
But in the end, it was McDonald's Eureka moment generated by Windows Server 2003 which produced the Windows Server 2008 name. "Check out the amusing "What's in a name?" video. No, that's not exactly how our naming process usually works," said Nick White, Microsoft Product Manager.