Rebranding Microsoft
STATUTORY WARNING: Please check with @TomWarren of winrumors.com (who reminds of Matt Lewis, oddly enough) for authenticity/publish-ability of this content prior to creating an echo-chamber full of my crap.
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I really don’t care for Microsoft’s branding and marketing efforts. They’ve been utterly useless for ages. Apple may be blurting out lies, lies and more damn lies in its marketing but it is super-effective. I feel that Microsoft may yet again be inspired by Apple (which uses any combination of the prefix i- and the word Mac in all their branding) more so than by Google (wherein the company name is the strongest brand). After all, nobody will buy a Microsoft TV, a Microsoft Phone or a Microsoft Pad. The word just doesn’t work well in marketing. Same as RIM and Blackberry, for instance.
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I think Microsoft will focus consumer branding around Windows, Xbox, Skype, Bing and Office in future. The Zune brand will be further demphasized, then retired, even though the service remains. Windows Live will also slowly be pulled back as a standalone brand. MSN will be pulling back too in favor of Xbox. TellMe will be seen more as a Bing thing. We’ll see more branding like Intune and Lync and less like System Center and Communicator from the enterprise side as well. So the key is fewer, stronger brands that stand for more things. However, branding is more than just words and logos. In lock-step with this effort, methinks:
1. Windows Live Essentials become Windows Extras (Messages, Mail, Photos, People) and ships with Win8. However, they’re Store apps that can be independently serviced and managed. Writer becomes a separate extra*.
2. WL Messenger becomes Skype Messenger, Hotmail issues @skype.com addresses, Skydrive becomes (lol) SkypeDrive. Also, VideoKinect gets replaced by Skype, while Lync brand continues, connecting to Skype.
3. Bing Bar is retired. A Windows Phone-like Bing app appears.
4.. Silverlight gets moved to the “back-yard” (plug-ins section of store, to reside with Flash, Java and other crap). Sorry @JoseFajardo, I think Silverlight is crap.
5. Family Safety is integrated back with parental controls & now with Windows SmartScreen, with servicing for definition lists through Windows Update.
6. A native metro OneNote app is made available free for Win8 early adopters. The full Office 2010 suite will continue to work as desktop apps, while OfficeWebApps go Metro first. Office15 will follow on x86 and ARM as Win8 desktop (which will look more in-line with the metro aesthetic than it is in the DP stage) apps. So, for instance, you can dock your ARM slate and use desktop Excel for heavy-duty work.
7. Media Center becomes a downloadable Windows extra* and gets a design update for Win8. Over time, and Windows versions, it will be deemphasized as a brand and some of its capabilities will be folded into…
8. Xbox Live becomes the TV, Movies, Music and Games delivery platform, pulling in Zune and third-party services’ content as well doing Mediaroom-based IPTV. This is accomplished as an app on Win8, that feeds into native playback capabilities of Windows, which 3rd-parties can use too.
9. Windows Phone makes a connector app available for device servicing purposes. Otherwise natively supported by Win8.
10. Kinect Fun Labs & other such Kinect-companion apps show up for Win8 & WP.
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*How some extras are priced may be dependant on how Win8 SKUs pan out, which is still up in the air.
