Microsoft name drops Palladium

According to the report, Microsoft always intended to change the title - which is not unusual for a codename. 'The official story - and it's true - is that we intended to change the name for a long time,' states Mario Juarez, product manager for Microsoft's Windows Trusted Platform Technologies Group.

In addition to criticism of the Palladium initiative itself, Microsoft was facing a legal contest over use of the term 'Palladium'.

Palladium is a combination of hardware and software technologies intended to provide a more secure computing environment - for example, verifying communications, preventing worms and viruses from executing, filtering spam and also enforcing DRM.

Only last week, Bill Gates was championing the Palladium architecture in an email sent to all Microsoft customers. In the communication, Gates outlined the company's efforts towards its Trustworthy Computing initiative

Microsoft unveiled Palladium back in July 2002.