More is often less with Microsoft, which can't seem to stop itself from rolling out long and confusing names for new products that otherwise aren't deserving of much attention. Consider the new Windows Mobile 2003 software for Pocket PCs, a modest but worthwhile improvement to the Pocket PC 2002 operating system for personal digital assistants (PDAs). Microsoft's hardware partners and journalists got a Windows Mobile Cheat Sheet specifying the 10 possible ways in which the software, available for both PDAs and wireless phones, could be described.

Among the sheet's commandments: "The term 'software' must come at the end of 'Windows Mobile' in the first mention of Windows Mobile, excluding headline copy, and then in at least 50 percent or more of the mentions thereafter." Well, this is one sheep who's wandering away from the flock. I'm going to call the new software Pocket PC 2003, which is the simple and obvious name that Microsoft should never have abandoned. You're free to mentally substitute the correct terminology from this point forward.