The Los Angeles Times’ Joseph Menn wrote an interesting article on the origins of code names at high technology companies:

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates introduces Windows XP in 2001. For company insiders, however, the operating system was called Whistler…
When Janus debuted recently, though, the program bore a less evocative name:
Windows Media Digital Rights Management 10.
The transformation is typical for technology products that have colorful, often geeky, monikers while in development, only to appear on store shelves under the most mundane names imaginable.
IBM’s Shark evolved into TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Servers. Apple Computer’s Killer Rabbit was renamed AppleShare 3.0. And Microsoft’s Snowball became merely Windows for Workgroups 3.11.

The Los Angeles Times’ Joseph Menn wrote an interesting article on the origins of code names at high technology companies:

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates introduces Windows XP in 2001. For company insiders, however, the operating system was called Whistler…
When Janus debuted recently, though, the program bore a less evocative name:
Windows Media Digital Rights Management 10.
The transformation is typical for technology products that have colorful, often geeky, monikers while in development, only to appear on store shelves under the most mundane names imaginable.
IBM’s Shark evolved into TotalStorage Enterprise Storage Servers. Apple Computer’s Killer Rabbit was renamed AppleShare 3.0. And Microsoft’s Snowball became merely Windows for Workgroups 3.11.