The Windows 8.1 ship-it awards were yellow

Microsoft has a tradition of giving an award to each member of a team when their product ships. The mechanics of this is that when you ship your first product, you get an award-like thing with blank spaces for metal plates. plus a metal plate that goes into one of the blank spaces. For each subsequent product, you get another metal plate to add to your award. When all the spaces are full, you get a new award.

So it’s like a fancy loyalty punch card, I guess.

Yes, the terminology is somewhat confusing. The metal plate is called an award, and so is the monument that you attach them to.

Anyway, the award for Windows 8.1 had a Windows logo on it, colored yellow.

Even though Windows 8.1’s code name was Blue.

Nobody ever explained that.