Windows 7. Yeah I know, catchy huh? You know, I have to say I’m a tad bit proud of the Microsoft crew for taking this step… Naming it Windows 7, as it is the seventh release of Microsoft Windows.

/../ coming up with an all-new “aspirational” name does not do justice to what we are trying to achieve /../ Mike Nash says in his blog post, and I can only assume one of two things. A) They want to get away from anything that may remind their potential consumers of Windows Vista, which really didn’t do Microsoft any good at all. Or B) They’re simply trying to make sense. Either way, I believe it is a good name. Call it uninspiring, call uncreative, heck even unoriginal. But frankly, it makes sense. It sounds good. Not so pretentious.

Microsoft seems to be in a hurry getting the word about Windows 7 out, and pushing the operating system out to developers, as they within a few weeks are distributing a pre-beta version, a “developer only release” as they call it. It’s understandable that they try and ramp up the tempo for this OS, since XP is getting rather old and Vista really isn’t considered a viable alternative for many, making the last decent Windows OS seven years old! Hey, maybe it’s a celebration to their last success… Windows 7 (years since we did something good…).

The only actual planned release date mentioned is June 3rd 2009, but it’s expected to be changed during The Professional Developers Conference (PDC) on October 27th and the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) the week thereafter. I’m confident the June date isn’t even close to an actual release date, so we’ll just have to stay tuned.

At the very bottom of Mike Nash’s blog post, a comment posted by one “strevoir” pleads to, I have to assume Microsoft:

“Please dont call it Windows 7 Please!
Please dont call it Windows 7 Please!
In Hong Kong, 7 in Chinese sound like the word “Lame”
As a microsoft fans,I dont want mac fans joking about the name, It will be hell annoying!!!!!!!!”

That is just funny.

Via TechCrunch, SweClockers and Windows Vista Blog