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Microsoft looks to improve its name game | |
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| Time: 06:12 EST/11:12 GMT | News Source: News.com | Posted By: Kenneth van Surksum | ||
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When Microsoft showed off Silverlight at an April conference, it generated near-instant buzz. Interestingly, though, it was not the first time Microsoft had talked about the technology. But when the company had done so a year earlier, it was under the name "Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere," which just didn't excite people the way Silverlight did. The improved moniker was no accident. For the past two years, Microsoft has put in place a concerted effort to improve its product naming, an effort that is just now becoming publicly visible with the introduction of products like Silverlight, Popfly and the new Surface tabletop computer. | ||
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| #1 By 7754 (216.160.8.41) at 7/17/2007 11:00:11 AM |
| It took them long enough... sheesh. |
| #2 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 7/17/2007 2:41:10 PM |
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MS assembled a team to do this and their first order of business was to change their own group's name from "Windows Technical Team for Application Product Naming Specification" to "The Cunning Linguists".
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| #3 By 23275 (24.179.4.158) at 7/18/2007 1:53:08 AM |
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#1, No kidding... all the ad/PR firms out there... but what do we get beyond acceptance by the press and why do we need, or want that? What are the drivers here, really?
Okay, so now we have names we can build a brand around.... ahh ha! the PR firms and ad agencies are dancing in the streets - wildly flinging all that money they are making, because now, well.... they get to build all those sexy brands they've been coming up with. Sexy? Perhaps. Discoverable? No. So now one either "knows" what Silverlight is, or they simply have no clue. "Microsoft Silverlight" - okay so now we know that it may have something to do with software... you get the idea. FLASH. Most people on the Internet know what that is - but how many know a platform has evolved around it? How many know its origins? How long and how much did it take to achieve even that limited understanding? "You will work at being cool, or we'll say, er uh, that... you're un-cool, yeah... that's it" "Oh yeah, now pay us.... a lot." There is a strong argument for maintaining "Microsoft" as the brand and then the platform [Windows, Office, Server] for the software. Consumer electronics under a "products" based effort - Zune, Xbox, etc... yeah, build a brand... Apple is a products company and it brands and markets like one. Microsoft isn't a products company [primarily]. Yeah, they make great products for the CE market and they are branded that way. Applying that mentality back onto the "Platform and Tools" software company is a huge mistake.... unless Microsoft no longer intends to sell through partners and they're willing to build up brands as a products company would. And that is exactly what the ad and PR firms want them to do - all that money.... you ever watch a too cool for school ad exec work over potential clients? The Answer, save your money and throw the ad exec off the roof. Hold a parking lot BBQ around the event and sell tickets. I'm sure his friends will come. This post was edited by lketchum on Wednesday, July 18, 2007 at 03:57. |
| #4 By 13030 (198.22.121.110) at 7/18/2007 9:45:07 AM |
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#3: throw the ad exec off the roof... I'm sure his friends will come.
Hooray! Ad execs have friends?!? There's a balance between a name that conveys function and purpose versus a name that is clumsy and boring versus a name that is nonsense (like the new web sites popping up). Microsoft lacks consistency in company-wide product and service branding and version naming. Look at the the .NET fiasco and the more recent Live mess. Every new version of Office since 2.0 uses a different name or versioning scheme. (Remember how Office, as a suite, went from 2.0 to 6.0?) I always prefer software to have a brief name and version number (not a year!). The version number reflects major product changes. Interim bug fixes can be minor version numbers until the next major release. Windows should have kept going from 3.11 and 4.0 onward--instead the marketers got a hold of it (like everything else). I don't have a problem with a name that sticks from the beginning and stays with the product and the particular product only. Silverlight, Popfly and Surface are fine with me. I really think the Surface name was one of the better product naming outcomes--even if the product itself really isn't that novel. |
| #5 By 23275 (24.179.4.158) at 7/18/2007 10:10:03 AM |
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#4, Yes, but "Surface" is a product and lends itself to branding as such.
It isn't so simple across the software lines built by Microsoft - where I assess the naming was for its partners. I see the market as a place where end customers have needs, partners working to provide for those needs use Microsoft software and names like "Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server" imply what the product actually does. The partner has a clue from the outset and the customer doesn't care - they just want their network secured and their bandwidth and Internet use managed and monitored. So let's say we now call "Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server" VanGuard, or some other such name we have to build a brand around. We have a lot more work to do in order to begin to define what "VanGuard" does - and so does the partner looking across Microsoft's line. The next question looks like this, "With what and how does one integrate VanGuard?" Oh, we next use, ForeFront.... what the heck is that, did you say, "StoreFront?" no, I said, ForeFront.... as connected to what?!? If all Microsoft did was build "VanGuard" it would be different... very different - just as it is for Apple - where they actually build very few products and no platforms. It's different, easier and the branding doesn't work in the same way as it has to for Microsoft..... UNLESS Microsoft no longer wants its partners... and in a world where "Services" are emphasized over "Software" Microsoft doesn't. And that is what may be behind these "branding" initiatives... either that, or Microsoft has been taken over by ad, PR and accounting execs and the engineers are being held hostage - may be it is both. This post was edited by lketchum on Wednesday, July 18, 2007 at 10:11. |
| #6 By 13030 (198.22.121.110) at 7/18/2007 11:23:37 AM |
| #5, Naturally, a purely technical product for service and solution providers should have a name that conveys its purpose. I have prefer names like "Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server" for these types of products. The need for flashy names is merely for broader audience appeal (and trademarks)--just like Windows, or Surface, for that matter. |
| #7 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 7/18/2007 1:31:06 PM |
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#4: I always prefer software to have a brief name and version number (not a year!).
I would certainly disagree with you there. Using version numbers was cute in the early days of any app, but it doesn't scale very well. In 2030, will you be using Office 22, PhotoShop 29 and Firefox 42? |
| #8 By 12071 (203.185.215.144) at 7/18/2007 11:15:04 PM |
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#7 "In 2030, will you be using Office 22, PhotoShop 29 and Firefox 42?"
Who cares? Software, at least internally, should all be versioned in the format: major.minor.maintenance.build major and minor are used to symbolize major and minor releases; maintenance is used each time a patch is released; and build is automatically incremented by your continuous integration server every single time a build is completed (successfully or otherwise). Externally, it's up to the PR guys to decide what's currently "in". Years are good from the point of view of knowing if you have the latest version or not - the problem with years is that you're essentially limited to a single revision per year (which may be acceptable). Otherwise what happens is some form of bastardization of year.quarter or year.month. Names are good from a general marketing point of view as people relate much better to names than number but they're useless for everything else as you don't know anything about the release! Do you have the current version? How many versions out are you? x.x.x.x version numbers, although being the most informative by a long shot, aren't exactly great marketing material. Which is why these version numbers are usually buried away in the About screen whilst the marketing material and packaging goes by some other name. |
| #9 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 7/19/2007 12:21:02 PM |
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#8: You're proposing replacing one arbitrary number with another. Why not use Year.major.minor.build? And you're not limited to a single version per year when using years. Product 2007 Release 1, Release 2, SP1, SP2 etc. Besides, how many major commercial apps get major releases more than once a year??? It's usually everything they can do to get one major version out per year.
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