You've probably heard by now that the next version of SharePoint will drop the "Office" moniker in favor of the more direct and easily understandable "Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010"  (read the Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog Post).  I agree with my colleague Bil Simser that it sounds like something from a science fiction novel (2010 The Year We Make Contact).  On the other hand, I see the logic.  It's just like all the other software titles from Microsoft that continually evolve to meet the changing needs of users.  Office 2003.  Exchange Server 2007.  SharePoint Server 2010.  Join the club, eh?

Sure there's the implied shift away from the whole "Office Business Applications" (OBA) theme, where the line between client and server components was blurred in favor of the more holistic "Office System" approach.  I can live with that.  I'm not sure it's taking hold anyway - at least not for the developers I've talked to.  Most of the SharePoint developers I know who come from an ASP.NET background seem to have trouble thinking of themselves as Office developers.

And sure, there's the potential confusion between Windows SharePoint Services (now "Microsoft SharePoint 2010") and the new server version of the product.  But maybe that's a good thing.  According to Tom Rizzo, we should just refer to it as "SharePoint" and stop stressing over the licensing model anyway.

And what about the "12 Hive"?  Will there be a "2010" folder to contend with now?  Will it change to "14" maybe?  And how about the namespaces, like "Microsoft.Office.RecordsManagement.InformationPolicy"?  Will they change?  I doubt it.  Something to think about, though, as you plan your next SharePoint project.

I dunno.  I'm with Rizzo.  I don't think the name really matters that much.  After all, we are in the middle of a content explosion.  The paradigm IS continually shifting.  Maybe we need a more generic name so we can focus more on the solutions we build and less on the particular features of a particular product version.

Oh, wait!  "Feature".  My bad.  We were talking about SharePoint features, not SharePoint Features.

This is soooo much fun!