On its Windows Team Blog, Microsoft announced the official name for the next version of Windows. It will be called... Windows 8. Yeah. Big surprises abound.

However, there was one surprise in today's announcement. Microsoft is reducing the number of different versions of Windows that will be available to purchase from five with Windows 7 to two in Windows 8. Here's the breakdown.

There will be two versions of Windows available to most people who use traditional x86/x64-compatible computers. (There's also an Enterprise edition, which will only be available to large companies with Software Assurance agreements.) Also new, but not sharing the Windows 8 moniker, is a specific version for ARM-based computers--called Windows RT. Windows RT won't be available as standalone software, it will only come bundled with compatible hardware. All Windows RT machines come with an ARM-native version of Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote).

With Windows 8, Microsoft has dramatically simplified the overly-complex scheme used to differentiate the different Windows 7 and Vista SKUs. This is a good thing. I'm sure the question you're asking right now is which version of Windows 8 will you need to buy? And, for the first time since Windows XP launched, the answer is simple. If you need to join a Windows Domain or use BitLocker's full-disk encryption, you should buy Windows 8 Pro. Otherwise, you can buy plain-vanilla Windows 8.

The only limitation comes if you want to do an in-place upgrade of an existing Windows 7 Pro or Windows 7 Ultimate machine. Because those versions of Windows 7 support BitLocker and joining domains, you can only do an in-place upgrade to Windows 8 Pro, which offers support for the same features. If you want to move to Windows 8 vanilla, you'll need to do a clean install.

Reducing the number of versions of Windows on offer is a good move on Microsoft's part. The over-priced Ultimate offerings and the confusing delineation between Home Basic and Home Premium versions were the perfect example of Goldilocks marketing, but despite offering many different versions, none were "just right".

http://www.tested.com/news/articles/43943-microsoft-unveils-official-name-for-next-windows--skus/

Well 4 if you include Win RT and Enterprise 

But the question is how much are they going to be charging 

Interesting, but since every other windows tend to suck, I'll at the very least wait a while till I get the full notion on how good it is. And I'm likely to just wait till windows 9 comes out :P

im a pro mac guy in every way so this means nothing to me but i can't help but be confused at Windows 8..

its a tablet interface.. on a screen you can't touch. very very weird

Only two versions of Windows 8? Microsoft has finally caught up to Mac OS X circa 2001! Oh well, since last year, Apple is down to just one version of Mac OS X, with the Server edition repackaged as DLC.

Win XP had 2 editions in 2001...

This is definitely aimed at tablets and smartphones, so I might just wait until I the next Windows OS to buy a new PC.

Wasn't Windows 7 released approximately last week? Why should people upgrade yet again? Furthermore, this looks terrible.

One can only hope that Windows 8 leads to a few more people checking out Ubuntu (linux), it's free, easy to install and use, and faster than Windows (less overhead). And you can even use Windows programs under Ubuntu if required (there's an awesome tool called Wine for that). Give it a try if you haven't already; in order to test Ubuntu you can even install (and uninstall) it under Windows, just like a regular program (of course it's not as fast that way).

http://www.ubuntu.com/

Microsoft are bringing touch to Windows indeed, but I've migrated completely to using Windows 8 (Consumer Preview) on my laptop, and it's definitely better than Windows 7 in my opinion. It's both faster because it requires less resources, but the new start screen is a big improvement over the old start menu, and there's a bunch of other upgrades (large and small) that make Windows 8 really nice to use on a regular non-touch PC.

I would hear more of this, for i am purchasing a new laptop in the next couple of months with money that i am hopefully getting for graduation (otherwise i'm not going to have money for things for some time, and this old laptop is getting fairly abused) and may very well end up with Windows 8 depending on release date...