You have got a plethorea of services that start with “Windows Live”: Windows Live Messenger (WLM), Windows Live Mail (WLM) [wait, which one is WLM?!], Windows Live Local (WLL), Windows Live Safety Center (WLSC), Windows Live Expo (WLE), Windows Live Favorites (WLF), Windows Live Search (WLS). Then there is another set of “Live” services: Windows Office Live (WOL) and Windows OneCare Live (WOCL or WOL). But the worst came today when I found out about the new Windows Live Local Search Free Call (WLLSFC).
At a company with over 60,000 employees, and a committee could ruin much of the work they do by making a huge mistake in naming. I don’t mind getting rid of MSN, which has a slow, clunky, non-innovative history attached to it. I understand that the naming works with the new organizational structure, but it makes no sense to the consumer to add extra words or letters.
Why not make MSN into just Live? Live Messenger, Live Mail, Live Search, Live Local. You could even play off it for advertising Live (change it to live as in living). They could do something even better, and get a whole new word/letter/phrase similar to “i” in iPod and iTunes. Branding is a huge pain and I think they are digging a hole with the new naming pattern. People can hardly tell what services are without long names like “Windows Live Local Search Free Call”. That is an absurdly long name, which could have been called Live Search Connectoid. I am partial to the word “connectoid” because I think it sounds interesting and unusual. Microsoft is trying to continue domination of the desktop by keeping the word Windows as a top buzz word. I think they are excluding users of Apple or Linux platforms who can easily access the Web 2.0 software being used.
When Lucent spun the Enterprise Networks Group out in 2000 it had to come up with a name. They picked Avaya, pronounced uhv-EYE-uh, because it would set them apart and capture what they were doing. Google was a made up word that came from the word googol, the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeros. Yahoo! is an acronym for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle” and the founders liked the definition of “rude, unsophisticated, uncouth”. Red Hat came from a lost Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes). Cisco is short for San Francisco, Intel came from INTegrated ELectronics and HoTMaiL as it was originally spelled was constructed with the letters HTML, which were used to create the web-based software.
What do you think of this new naming scheme from Microsoft? How would you change it?
PS: I do really like the name Microsoft, and it would have been nice to see them stick that back in. They have made great software. I know the name has had a bad reputation with games, but the Xbox has changed that around and given birth to Microsoft Game Studios.
