A Microsoft Code Name a Day: Avalanche
link: original article - section: microsoft
I’m resuming my Microsoft Code Name a Day series that I started in December 2006. The goal: To provide the back story, each day in August, on one of Microsoft’s myriad code names. Some of these code names might be familiar to Microsoft watchers; others (hopefully) will be brand-new.
Microsoft code names offer some great clues about the Redmondians’ development priorities, not to mention a better understanding of which future Microsoft products fit together, from a strategy standpoint. And not every product group is moving to boring, numbered codenames (like Windows 7 and Office 14).
Without further ado, let the codename games begin.
Microsoft code name of the day: Avalanche
Best guess on what it is: Microsoft Secure Content Downloader (MSCD)
Meaning/context of the code name: Avalanche had a rocky start back in 2005, when it was a Microsoft research project that many dubbed Redmond’s BitTorrent killer. I guess the P2P file sharing was poised to set off a cascading avalanche of secure file downloads?
Back story: MSCD is “a peer-assisted” download manager capable of securely downloading specific files. The target audience is consumers who are downloading from a home PC, or business users whose computers are not behind a corporate firewall.
Microsoft’s more detailed description: “MSCD allows authorized content publishers to distribute their content to a large audience via file swarming. The publisher can choose to use MSCD to augment their existing server bandwidth, or use it to enable them to reach a much larger audience than they could have otherwise with a relatively small server investment. MSCD is NOT a file searching or file sharing technology: it’s intended for a small number of publishers to distribute content to a large number of customers.”
