There’s a lot of conversation as well as confusion today about Microsoft’s announcement of its new version of Windows, especially in that its branding it as Windows 10, even though the last version of Windows was 8 (or 8.1, if one wanted to get technical, which we welcome).
The thing is,
Microsoft hasn’t adhered to this for awhile. As an example, please take a look at this table of consumer Windows version numbers via Wikipedia. There are a lot more than ten of them, even with professional versions set aside. Windows 8 was really something like the actual Windows 7, but might as well have been called Windows Potato. It's never made sense, and that's OK.
As can be seen in the table linked above, the current version should be something along the lines of Windows 6, or rather a version of it, instead of 10. Very similar to how
That said, Windows 10 shouldn’t be dusted under the rug as a rushed-to-production reactionary operating system; it’s likely Microsoft knew of Windows 8s shortcomings and had contingency in place. Everything today makes it seem like Microsoft knows what it's doing. Keep in mind, this will be the first release of the flagship product under the captainship of new CEO Satya Nadella, and it will likely be handled differently than those of his predecessor – and that’s a good thing.
The announcement mirrors the launch of a new Windows-optional MSN suite of services, another indication of Microsoft’s new direction that appears to be going in the right direction. MSN is now distancing itself from some of its components like Bing and Cortana, both of which should play a large role in the new OS.
And finally, to be fair, the last version of Windows really wasn’t Windows 8 despite the name. And the next version really shouldn’t be Windows 9. As best as we can tell via the included parts of the prior major releases it might be more accurate to call it Windows 12, because just like Microsoft, we’re pretending that Windows ME and ’98 Special Edition never existed in the first place.
