San Francisco can expect a crowd April 24. That's the date and place Microsoft has chosen to launch the next major upgrade to its operating system, Windows Server 2003.

Microsoft product launches, as anyone who's attended them knows, tend to be extravagant affairs. In November, Microsoft used the MGM Grand's cavernous Grand Garden to unveil several products and announce the final test version of the upcoming operating system. Before chairman Bill Gates' appearance on stage, green, pink, red, and blue lights scanned the crowded auditorium as men dressed in Lycra butterfly suits engaged the audience, pop music blared, and smoke machines covered the stage in a misty haze.

The introduction of Windows Server 2003--until a few days ago called Windows .Net Server 2003--promises to be one of the vendor's most important product releases of the year. Microsoft will also roll out its Visual Studio .Net 2003 development environment April 24. The company hasn't yet disclosed the actual location of the event.

David Smith, an analyst with Gartner, says Microsoft was smart to drop ".Net" from the operating system's formal name because the moniker, which is used to label a variety of Microsoft products, has created too much confusion. "They put the name on products that didn't have that much to do with what .Net's all about," Smith says.

In general, .Net has been a marketing term used to signal that a product fits into Microsoft's Web-services architecture. Smith says he'd be surprised if the moniker isn't dropped from some other products as well. Microsoft confirmed Friday that all of its products will be evaluated for possible changes under its new naming convention. "The decisions and timing of name changes for products will be on a case-by-case basis," the company said in an E-mail response to an inquiry.

The name change, Smith says, doesn't mean that Microsoft is rethinking its Web-services strategy. "The company remains 100% committed to Web services," he says. In a related attempt to clarify its branding strategy, Microsoft said last week it will use a ".Net Connected" logo to designate products that "easily and consistently" work together in its .Net architecture.