When we first started posting news tidbits regarding Windows 8, we warned readers not to expect the operating system to arrive until 2011 at the earliest, and we noted that 2012 was more likely. After the problems caused by the long gap between the releases of Windows XP and Windows Vista, Microsoft said that starting with Windows 7, the company would work really hard to follow a three-year release cycle. Windows 7 was released on October 22, 2009, so it makes sense that Windows 8 will get here in 2012, assuming no delays. That might be a slightly harder feat to achieve given that Windows 8 will be a major release (like Windows Vista was, as opposed to a minor one, like Windows 7 was) but since Windows 7 arrived less than three years after Vista, Microsoft should be able to pull it off.
The roadmap posted by msftkitchen, therefore, doesn't really show anything too surprising: the operating system is indeed codenamed Windows 8 (we knew that), it will be a major release (we knew that), and it is currently slated for 2012 (we guessed that). The successor to Windows Server 2008 R2 is also expected to arrive in 2012, but the server roadmap doesn't give the release a name or even a codename (we were expecting something like Windows 8 Server). Please remember, though, that the tilde in front of the 2012 year is there for a reason: Microsoft isn't setting anything in stone.
In terms of final names, we're like to see "Windows 8" and "Windows Server 2012," again assuming no major delays and assuming Microsoft is going to stick to the same naming scheme. When Microsoft decided to keep the codename for Windows 7 as the final name of the product in October 2008, we noted that this new naming scheme was likely to remain for future Windows client releases; it would be really confusing, not to mention terribly foolish, to have only one release with a number suffix in its name. As for the Windows server releases, the year suffix signifying a major release and the R2 suffix signifying a minor release seems to be working just fine. We don't see much reason to change this system, and for the sake of consistency, hopefully Microsoft doesn't either.