Brand-happy Microsoft is slapping the word “Live” on just about every new product it launches, from anti-virus software to search tools. Bad idea. Even the most loyal Microsoft fans have no clue what the term means…and it looks as if Microsoft doesn’t, either. I certainly don’t.
How bad has it gotten? Consider this: At the current TechEd conference, the Windows Live booth was a ghost town, and the most common question at the booth was, “What is Windows Live?”
Trevin Chow of the Windows Live group admitted in his blog about the event, “It was abundantly clear that customers have no idea at all what Windows Live is, or how it relates to Windows.”
Join the club. The site doesn’t appear to relate to Windows. And as for the term Live, it means…what, exactly? Microsoft seems to say that it’s supposed to be about Web-based applications and content. If that’s the case, though, why is it calling its new security suite “Windows Live OneCare”? The application isn’t Web-based, it lives on your PC.
All this reminds me of the bad old days of when MIcrosoft was .NET-happy, and threw the term onto every product, service, and idea it could think of. That served only to thoroughly confused developers, users, and anyone else.
Unfortunately, it appears that they’re on the same path with the “Live” brand.
Maybe it's part of their grand strategy to avoid anti-trust lawsuits, but MS seems to have always had piss-poor branding. How about when everything was labelled "Active?" Ugh.
But seriously (sarcastically), I like what they're doing with this "Live" thingy. Not only is it a very common word that lends nothing distinct (except that it's a pleasant word, unlike "MS Rabid Squirrel" or "MS Active Cockroach.NET") for MS to hang its product meanings onto, but "Live" has two distinct meanings.
Dr. McCoy: "He's dead Jim!"
Kirk: "Live Spock! Live!"
-or-
Scotty: "I canna' help it captain. We always lose a red-shirted guy whenever they land on a planet or grab hold a live wire here in engineering."
OK, maybe I'm being too tough. After all, whoever came up with the common button icons & drop-down menu items for the Office suite is a genius. I'm sticking with my anti-anti-trust theory.
-PM
And, yet, one could argue that, thanks to the over branding of .NET, it has become one of the most well-known and widely-used frameworks around. Last I heard, IIS usage numbers were moving faster than Apache.
Plus, how good can something called "OneCare" be?
Hmm. Let's see. What is Windows Live? Take a look at Google and Yahoo and it's clear Microsoft is in catch up mode regarding user portal customization. Windows Live is Microsoft's first stab at jumping on the Web 2.0 bandwagon. If you look closer, laugh now..but Microsoft doesn't really have to be innovative here. They have the money and brain power to transform Windows Live into what it needs to be - a serious contender to Google and Yahoo. It it too late? Perhaps. Now they have a big branding problem on their hands. Not an easy one to figure out here.
And where exactly is Windows Live tied into Vista...or is that being accomplished now? The primary objective of Windows Live is to extend every Microsoft application into a web experience.
I couldn't agree more about the .NET / Live comparisons, but could Live/Vista integration be the first step into bringing the remote desktop and online worlds closer? I'm sure we'll see within the next five years a margining of these contents - maybe Live integration is the next step (along with the Googlelabs, Yahoo etc)
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