Background
In the movie
2001: A Space Odyssey the producers asked
IBM if they could use their machines in the movie. Due to the computer's less than positive portrayal in the film,
IBM declined and the producers named the computer
HAL, shifting each letter back one proving they were better than
IBM.
When Microsoft was desiging their new Operating System, they hired a former employee of DEC, Dave Cutler, who played a major part in the development of VMS. He agreed to work on two conditions:
- They paid him an incredibly high salary
- He was able to name the Operating System
He helped the programmers finish their new 32-bit Operating System and ended up giving it the name "WNT." The resulting operating system had quite a few VMSisms in its underpinnings and the WNT which later was shortened to NT was a subtle jab at Microsoft's operating system, showing that WNT was worse than VMS (letters going in reverse from the 2001 scenario). So its not "New Technology" or "Networking", NT as an acronym doesn't stand for anything.
This was told to me by my school district's netadmin. I'm not sure of its true, but two other noders /msg'd me saying it is and its reasonably possible and interesting nonetheless