Why Is It Called “Windows?”

Spiderowych asked the Windows forum why Microsoft gave their operational system much a simple, nonpareil-word name.

Microsoft has inconsistently followed a marketing strategy of using basic, descriptive, uncomparable-Bible names. Word is an excellent example. So are Money and Office.

The name Windows fits into that philosophy. At the clock of its novel release Modern in 1985, just about in operation systems were single-tasking, text-only, and ran from a command line–like Department of State if you remember that. Graphic user interfaces (GUIs) were still new. The Mac, less than ii years old at that metre, was the only GUI-based system enjoying commercial success. The word Windows simply described one of the most overt differences betwixt a GUI and a command-line interface.

Of course, the name was never officially Windows, but Microsoft Windows. From the company's stand, that's monumental. You can't trademark a usual word like Windows all by itself. (I suppose they could have proprietary Irksome and Buggy Windows, but I guess that didn't get passed the Marketing Section.)

These one-word Microsoft names can cause some interesting bear in mind associations. During that brief, pre-Cyberspace clock time when everyone was publishing reference books happening CD-ROM, the folks in Redmond released a Four hundred known as Microsoft Dogs. I cerebration it was a bundle of Microsoft Money and Microsoft Bob.

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Contributing Editor Lincoln Spector writes about technology and cinema. Email your tech questions to him at answer@pcworld.com , operating theatre post them to a community of helpful folks on the PCW Serve Line forum . Trace Lincoln happening Twitter , or subscribe to the Answer Line newsletter , e-mailed weekly.