EDIT 08/18/08 13:39 PDT-
Mary Jo has retracted her initial information regarding the demise of Windows 2008 Revision 2; it appears that it is still on track as originally planned, and Windows Server 7 will be following it at the prescribed 2-year interval, exactly as Microsoft had originally estimated. So, it looks my my prediction below that all this is unlikely to result in much to-do was even more appropriate than I had imagined.-

EDIT 08/19/08 18:34PDT-
Stranger and stranger... I just received a clarification from Microsoft on the whole naming matter, stating unequivocally that Windows Server 2008 R2 will be the next minor revision released according to the established roadmap, and that the company is not commenting on the name of the major version to follow... but that internally, "Windows 7 Server" is the codename for Windows Server 2008 R2. This, of course, deserves a new post of its own.

According to Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft is ditching the scheduled Revision 2 update for 2010 to Windows Server 2008 in favor of making the next release a major version upgrade to what will be called "Windows Server 7."

At least they're getting their Vista/2K8 code base names in sync (provided they don't change "Windows 7" to something else along the way). There is also some speculation that the company may move the date of the release up to coincide with the projected 2009 release of the desktop version of 7, but I'm not sure that makes much sense from anyone's perpsective.

I think it indicates some sort of internal discord, and consequentially a lack of discipline and organization, that Microsoft can't come up with and stick to a standard nomenclature for their products and versioning. Coding may be equal parts rigor and creativity, but either without the other results in weak results. This is kind of a weak argument, of course; the people who come up with the names for the products aren't those who are cranking out the code for them. Nonetheless, on a sort of meta-level, it reveals discord in the company which is equally apparent in other respects, and which I believe negatively effects the products. Having difficulty determining the direction of products can't help but effect their quality.

Anyway, that's just a theory you needn't subscribe to, I just thought I would throw it out there. I'm not sure I support it 100% myself.

On the other hand, while the confusion this sort of thing engenders on the consumer side no doubt profits the company ("98! Why that's newer than 95, Ma, we'd better pick us up some of that!") CIOs and IT managers aren't so easily befuddled. If Server 7 really consists of only the same relatively minor updates that were slated for 2K8 R2, it's unlikely that corporate customers are going to jump on the bandwagon to standardize on it (provided they've already moved to 2K8; otherwise, it seems likely they'll simply wait for 7). Server upgrades are both more fraught and less driven than desktop upgrades, and many organizations can and do continue quite comfortably using servers that run quite outdated operating systems by desktop standards. I don't see how this move impacts corporate planning much in any way.

MJ has a lot of questions about the implications of the switch in her article, so I won't bother to ask them again here. Last night, I had most of the same questions myself, but this morning I'm thinking I was probably reading too much into it, and this is just another example of the standard Microsoft waffling and disorganization and doesn't signify any major trends.