Programming Windows: Connected, Clear, Confident (Premium)

I was on vacation with my family in Stowe, Vermont in July 2005 when I received a phone call from Microsoft PR after having ignored a briefing request. “You’re going to want to hear this one,” I was told. And so I lifted myself out of the pool-side chaise lounge, closed the book I was reading, and told my wife and kids that I needed a few minutes to deal with a work call.

It was Windows product manager Greg Sullivan. Microsoft was prepping to announce the final name for the version of Windows that had been known only by its Longhorn codename for the past several years. So I accepted the call.

Microsoft, I was told, would market Longhorn as Windows Vista.

"Windows Vista will bring clarity to your world by letting you focus on what matters most to you," Sullivan told me. "We live in an age of more. We have more data, more music, more content than ever before. Windows Vista will help you get the clarity you need to get your work done quickly, so you can get off the computer and spend time with your family." This message would appeal to all 600+ million Windows customers, Sullivan added because we all have things we want to accomplish and goals we strive toward.

Ugh.

As fate would have it, I had already leaked the Vista branding the previous day via my Internet Nexus blog, noting that the term meant, “a view, especially a splendid view from a high position,” or “a possible future action or event that you can imagine.” So it seemed fitting enough. But now I can reveal that a source had sent me leaked internal documents that would be presented at an internal Microsoft event called Microsoft Global Briefing (MGB) that was being held July 22 in Atlanta. At that event, Brian Valentine would officially announce the new name.

“Yesterday, at the Microsoft Global Briefing in the Georgia Dome, we reached a significant milestone,” Microsoft senior vice president Will Poole told employees. “We unveiled the name of our next client operating system, Windows Vista. We also announced that Beta 1, targeted at developers and IT professionals, will be made externally available by August 3rd … With Beta 1, we will start to give the world their first glimpse of our product, with most end-user features coming in Beta 2. We are on track to deliver Windows Vista in 2006.”

“I love this name,” said Jim Allchin, who had given final approval of the new moniker. “Vista creates the right imagery for the new product capabilities and inspires the imagination with all the possibilities of what can be done with Windows, making people’s passions come alive.”

I wasn’t completely sold on the name---I thought the company should have gone with Windows 2007 or whatever---but I figured we’d get used to it, as we had with Intel’s Pentium branding. What I had a harder time with was Microsoft’s weird “Connected, Clear, Confident” marketing.

“As always, Microsoft needs to summarize any product using three ...