Microsoft has made two big product name announcements in the last couple of days:
- Monad (formerly the Microsoft Shell or Management Shell) has been renamed to Windows PowerShell. I, personally, am disappointed; Monad is a great name (grade-school sound substitutions aside) and had a decently geeky pedigree to interest folks who aren’t normally willing to look at innovations coming out of Redmond. I’ve personally been able to get at least two of my friends to look more closely at it (and ultimately pronounce it a “Cool Idea!”) just because they couldn’t believe that a Microsoft product would be named for something that esoteric. At the same time, it was sufficiently unique that it could be easily turned into a visible and valuable brand by a group with as much marketing muscle as Microsoft. Ah, well.
- Perhaps less surprising given the recent Office 2007 announcement, Exchange 12 is now officially http://blogs.technet.com/exchange/archive/2006/04/25/426300.aspx. Personally, I was hoping for something a bit snazzier, like Windows PowerMessaging Server 2007, built on Windows PowerShell technology.
I too am disappointed in the name change, and not just for losing a cool name like Monad or MSH. Powershell sounds like a their party app to me, and denotes junior dev type program. But what truly irks me is accessibility. msh.exe is infinitely easier to type than powershell.exe. Letter count, key placement, etc all combine to make it that much harder and that much longer to access something that's main purpose is to make things easier.
I liked MSH. It sounds cool, it rolls off the tongue, and its so easy to type. I've been using MSH since beta 2, and have been constantly amazed at the functionality, versatility, and abilities it gives me with each keystroke. The name change somehow taints it, and the posted reason for the name change only adds to the sour taste. Yes, melodramatic, but it aptly describes how strongly I feel. From other's responses, I see my opinion is shared. I truly hope they revert back to msh.
James Pogran
PowerMessaging Server... So the acronym for your new Exchange would be PMS.
hmm... maybe not such a bad idea. ;)
I am so glad that someone caught that.
I personally would have liked it to be named Windows Shell, WinShell for short, or WSH. Even better, WiSH. Just like a lot of Microsoft products, I WiSH it had a better name.
Wade