Yes, our Web site branding sucks

ok try saying vista to a clerk, he will say “what!”
http://www.irintech.com/x1/

I have always thought that Microsoft’s brading was, sorry but being rude, rubbish. Coming up with stupid names like XP and Vista are awful. Not to mention the MSN stuff (what exactly is different between Microsoft and MSN!?). I also wish you wouldn’t stick things like Professional Enterprise Edition 2003 on the end as it just makes things worse. You need to higher a new product naming group

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Hello Mr. Back-ache-the-rapist,

this is not an advertisment challenge, refrain..

In an increasingly viral services world online, catchy names are key. Microsoft should rebrand its offerings in amore consistent manner. Think of a portfolio of offerings that blend together. Now it seems totally uncordinated. The connections across different brand names will also ease communication to the consumers as well as the stock analysts–who are as confused about where MSFT is going.

Robert, numbers 1 through 5 are already satisfied by “live”, just someone decided to put the prefix “Windows” on everything you guys do. Case in point, Windows Internet Explorer 7.

Good point on the site name issue. Though you may run into problems, as buying domains can be very expensive. You’d need a serious marketing budget to buy domains, and with the constraints on resources that your firm faces, it just may not be possible to buy all the domains that the marketing team needs.

Do you think that a day’s interest on the interest on the petty cash hoard would cover it? Maybe 2 days worth!

I think the tipping point for me was when Avalon and Indigo got renamed to ‘Windows Presentation Framework’ and ‘Windows Communication Framework’ (respectively). I still haven’t figured out what was wrong with the initial names that they had – could you imagine Apple renaming stuff like Quartz, Carbon, Cocoa? Do your Marketing guys really think that the end user *cares* what the technology is called?

I should point out I mean the end user rather than the developer …

branding is not something you decide with comments – the more people you ask, the worse your branding will be. keep it simple and tight. decide within a very small group of people.
yes, microsofts branding is very untight and chaotic. but at the same time i believe thats microsoft: you don’t care so much about tight control and tight design. you are everywhere all the time. with success so far.

“Origami” or “Ultra Mobile Personal Computer (UMPC)”

Not to dispute your assertions, but are there not recent MS distractions that could use embellishment before going here?

- scott -

Microsoft’s websites remind me a great deal of the phone company websites I’ve encountered. There is little consistency between pages, and you are always one link away from entering this ‘legacy area’ of the website that is no longer updated (and looks nothing like the previous pages you’ve visited) or clicking and ending up with a dead link (404 error) which is just plain silly.

It leads to the idea that when you are searching for answer you might find it, or you might get trapped in some place with a partial answer and go away looking for a third party site that has more information.

Rebranding a new site into the existing structure just seems is kind of like filming another ending for a movie so it can be released on DVD and just confuse the user even more.

my two cents.

What’s worse is that after numerous revisions you licensing schemes still suck, especially for us corporate monkeys. I know corporations that have ‘licensing specialists’ just for your products.

6. Can be made into a verb.

The problem is, Microsoft branding is just silly. It tries to be so descriptive so that the name tells you everything you need to know. However, unlike “Snakes on a Plane”, you guys can’t do it well, and you ignore the branding of your most successful products:

Word
Excel
Access
PowerPoint
Windows

Can you imagine the carnage if the prats doing your branding now were responsible for those?

Instead of Word, you’d have “Microsoft Word Processing For Windows”. Instead of Excel, you’d have “Microsoft Spreadsheet and Financial Calculations”

The Avalon and Indigo stuff is dead on. Those were GREAT names. So what if they didn’t describe what they talked about perfectly…they don’t have to. Tell me, which sounds better on stage…

“And now, see the future of the Windows interface…ladies and gentlemen…Avalon!”

Or what you’re stuck with now:

“And now, see the future of the Windows interface…ladies and gentlemen…The Windows Presentation Foundation!”

I mean, damn, Apple showed that a simple name for a product works:

iMovie and iPhoto as opposed to “Microsoft Digital Image” or “Microsoft Movie Maker”.

iTunes or Windows Media Player.

Note how for the Apple versions, I don’t have to tell you who makes them. You google for iMovie, or iPhoto, or iTunes, you know this *instantly”

But Digital Image? Movie Maker? Why not just change WIndows to “Graphical Operating System”?

Apple hasn’t significantly changed the name of their OS since 2001. Mac OS X

Yet, in the same amount of time you have:

Windows 2000
Windows XP Home
Windows XP Professional
Windows 2000 Server
Windows 2003 Server
and on, and on, and on.

Microsoft branding passed “Suck” and ran joyously into “execrable” YEARS ago. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear Michael Spindler was your VP of branding.

You guys need to get someone with style. Fast.

You should thank the sweet lord that the Windows Branding Morons didn’t get ahold of the Xbox.

Otherwise, it would be “MIcrosoft Video Game Console”.

Microsoft are completely out of touch with respect to anything that real people (non nerds or corporate IT people) care about. Everybody involved in branding MS seems to be a frigging zombie with zero sense of creativity or fun.

Naming is an art form. Snappy, short and sweet usually does it best. See “Sparkle” vs. “Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer”. Now “Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer” is a truly innovative product, but any major dude can tell you that “Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer” is a lousy name. Saying “Microsoft Expression Interactive Designer” too often, saps all the strength from your body.

MS Dudes and Dudettes! Listen to you customers. We HATE your naming schemes. Do something about it.

Bobinho: it’s not just the customers who hate our naming schemes. I hate them too!

Someone in Microsoft Branding needs to own up to the fact that spending whatever fortune was spent to buy “live.com” (and it’s equally wasted brother “start.com”, what the heck is domain like that being used for an “incubation experiment” for anyway?) was a poor investment, and they shouldn’t throw out the “MSN” branding for the hugely awkward “Windows Live” just to justify the purchase…

MSN is easy satisfies items 1-5 and has tons of brand recognition due to the ubiquitous “MSN Messenger”. Renaming that to “Windows Live Messenger” is a terrible, terrible, terrible decision that will, at best, dilute the brand.

Right now, people say “I’ll see you later on MSN”. If this change goes through, that’s not to change to “I’ll see you on Windows Live”, it’ll be “I’ll see you on Messenger” (thus losing the whole branding) or something easier, like “I’ll see you on AIM/Gtalk/Meebo/etc..”

It’s obvious to everyone, even without marketing training or experience, that “Windows Live” is terrible. MS Branding seems to be going through enormous ego (“We must rebrand everything in my image!”) and/or collectively wrong groupthink.

This inability to consistently brand is just symptomatic of a greater problem. You’re just too big and unwieldly, with a centre of gravity that’s too high off the floor to safely change direction with any speed. The wrong people/departments are being given responsibility over the wrong areas.

We are just starting to glimpse the first signs of Microsoft becoming the GM of the computer industry. This is not inevitable, but there comes a point where the momentum in this direction gets to supertanker proportions – and you suddenly realise you are heading for a fog bank, and both the sonar and radar have stopped working.

In my professional experience, it’s usually not the copywriters who are responsible for bad naming; it’s the client/management/executive — the person who makes the final decision. The client will get handed a list of recommendations or suggestions, and then will decide on one because his sixteen year old daughter thinks it sounds the best. The creative teams don’t have any decision making authority.

LOL what MSFT has finally achieved is to replace their creative marketing people with lawyers and collective committees.

Sparkle vs Expressions Interactive Designer is the worst offense yet. Something is horribly wrong when you change a product name from something like Sparkle to EID. WTF is wrong with Microsoft Sparkle?

At least Avalon and Indigo can be shortened to WPF and WCF.

“creative marketing people”…that’s a contradiction in terms.