Projects and products in the Microsoft world

This was explained to me recently by someone at Microsoft and I thought it was worth sharing as it's a useful distinction.

Microsoft create a lot of "projects". You might recognise some of these:
murphy | astoria | oxford | centennial | islandwood | madeira | natick |
spark | scorpio | florence | bletchley | spartan | rome | westminster | natal

What's important to note about these projects is that they are not fully fledged products.

Projects are not final. They are experiments or explorations. They come with no guarantees about lifetime, support or stability. They may be around for a long time. They may get cancelled early. They may turn into actual products.

Products are supported and have a future. (And maybe a price tag.)
The lesson is to maybe not pin all your hopes and plans on something that's still a project.