Embarrassing product names averted: Windows Embedded POS and Windows 10 for Advanced PCs

Raymond Chen

Windows Embedded for point of sale systems is not called Windows Embedded POS, even though POS is the the industry standard acronym for the term point of sale. Because in the English language, POS is also a slang acronym for something much less complimentary.

To their credit, the Windows Embedded team realized this and named the product Windows Embedded POSReady.

The version of Windows 10 designed for high-end systems is called Windows 10 Pro for Workstations. But that wasn’t its original name. The original name was Windows 10 for Advanced PCs.

That name was used for some time, until someone in a meeting pointed out that this resulted in an unfortunate acronym. He had to explain what fap meant to the other people in the meeting.

I guess this is not entirely unexpected, since the team that produced Windows 10 for Advanced PCs was originally going to call themselves the Windows Technology Foundation group, until somebody pointed out what that acronym stood for.

Related reading: Why every advertising agency needs to have a review panel of twelve-year-old boys. The importance of having a review panel of twelve-year-old boys, episode 2.