Obviously, Windows 7 is not the label under which the next iteration of the Windows client will be made available on the market. The final product name under which the gold Windows 7 bits will be released is yet to be made public, that if Microsoft has even decided on it. However, the Redmond company is indeed looking for the next "XP" and "Vista" label to stick next to Windows and create a new brand. Passatempo de Verão 2008 is an initiative from Omitek in collaboration with Microsoft Portugal designed to permit users to win prizes by sharing with the Redmond company their version of the final name for Windows 7.

"This was a challenge that has been proposed by one member of our Technical Communities, João Pedro Piedade, and we support with enthusiasm. It is a challenge at least curios, but welcomed, and inspired, offering incentives to the participants for their suggestions of the final name for Windows 7! As for the top 3 winners, Portugal Microsoft will proactively submit the names they come up with for Windows to the product group of WCT as a further contribution of Portugal in this product," revealed Cristina Carvalho, a member of MSDN Portugal.

Now my Portuguese is a bit rusty, so this translation is bound to be less than exact, but it is accurate enough to drive the idea behind the challenge home. With Windows Vista, Microsoft did approach members of the Flickr community for imagery that ended up being included as the default wallpaper pack of the operating system, so turning to Portuguese users for the actual name of Windows 7 might at least prove additional continuity in regard to Vista, with respect to the Latin linguistic influences of the label for the latest Windows client.

Windows 7, in all fairness in not even a code-name, it is a product number. The practice migrated from the Office division with Steven Sinofsky, now Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group. The next version of Office is Office 14 and the next version of Windows is Windows 7. Seven because this will be the seventh version of the Windows kernel, whereas Vista delivers the sixth.

Participants in the Passatempo de Verão 2008 initiative can win a copy of Office 2007 Home and Student 2007, a Microsoft LifeChat ZX-6000, Microsoft Comfort Optical Mouse 3000, a copy of Gears of War and one of Ninja Gaiden II just by answering the following question from João Pedro Piedade: "What is the name you would like to see in the future version of Windows?".