When I said, a couple days ago, that the Windows Server naming confusion indicated "...internal discord, and consequentially a lack of discipline and organization..." I didn't know the half of it. Things over there are even stranger than I could have supposed.

I got a clarification from Microsoft regarding the confusion, started here by Martijn Brant from an ambiguous Danish Technet newsletter and echoed inadvertently by noted Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley (which was where I first saw it), over the names and release dates of the next minor and major versions of Windows Server. That clarification is quoted in part below.

Windows 7 Server is the code name for WS08 R2, not the name of the next major release of the Server OS (as you seemed to indicate). At this time, Microsoft is not commenting on the name or details of the next major release of the Server OS, since the company is focused on the current version WS08 and the development of R2.

Also provided was a link to Windows Server team group product manager Ward Ralston's Technet blog, which provides much the same information.

This is almost obviously strange and convoluted even to the layperson's perspective, but it becomes even moreso when you consider that most SDEs and SDE/Ts at the company refer to the software by its reported winver (open a command prompt, type winver and hit enter... see what your Windows is really called!). That's how, for all these years and whacky name changes, there has been some underlying consistency in the version releases. Now, we're being asked to believe that internally, people are referring to 2K8 R2 as Windows 7, although its winver will properly be 6.1. I've asked for a comment on this oddity; we'll see what comes back.

Now, I am not suggesting that businesses need to tailor their internal code names to accommodate potential misunderstandings by people who have no need to be poking their noses in them regardless (although, in Microsoft's case, it might be a good idea to do so anyway). But I think that this, if anything, strengthens my original theory as an indicator of internal disorganization at the company... which leads to low morale, crappy code, and missed deadlines. I had been ready to take that theory out behind the barn and shoot it, assuming that most of the naming games that plague Microsoft products were played by the marketing department. But this appears to be internal to the Windows team; an anonymous contributor to MJ (quoted in a follow-up, here) claims that the codename has to do with Windows Engineering head Steven Sinofsky's "like of big round numbers" and that "7" is a typical minor release focused on features rather than core components.

The intriguing possibility that may answer for all this apparent confusion lies in something else the anonymous author says, however.

"Finally, and I can't be more clear on this, 'Windows 7′ client and Windows Server 2008 R2 will RTM simultaneously (and just so you are 100% clear on this) and are based on exactly the same codebase (just as Vista SP1 and Server 2008 are based on an identical core OS codebase)."

The conspiracy theory that leapt most immediately to mind when all this first came up was that somehow, Microsoft was attempting to deliver a minor version of Windows Server in major version clothes, something that wasn't likely to fly with well-informed CIOs and IT managers. But now it seems as though the minor version they are going to be releasing as a major version is in fact the Windows client software... the eagerly awaited Windows 7 itself. And this would explain why 2K8 R2 is also being referred to as Windows 7 Server. If the anonymous contributor is the be believed (and obviously the information must be taken with a large grain of salt) then these products, released at the same time and with a nearly identical codebase, will have no core code changes and thus fit the definition (and Windows Server roadmap... satisfying the possible discrepancy in which apparently got MJ's attention in the first place) as minor releases... but the client software will be marketed and sold as a major version.

That makes a lot more sense; consumers will fall for that sort of thing easily (remember Windows Me?). And CIOs can hope that Windows 7 serves as a Win98 to Vista's Win95, a more stable and polished platform to upgrade to, even if they have to pay full price to what may only be in effect a beefed-up service pack.