Microsoft says goodbye to Windows Live brand

https://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/05/02/cloud-services-for-windows-8-and-windows-phone-windows-live-reimagined.aspx

by kefs • 14 years ago

81 55 14 years ago

blogs.msdn.com

TazeTSchnitzel• 14 years ago

Confusion again, but hopefully for the better.

So we've gone from Hotmail, to MSN Hotmail, to Windows Live Mail, to Windows Live Hotmail. Where now? Windows Hotmail?

Zarel• 14 years ago

It appears to be branded "Microsoft Hotmail" or just "Hotmail" now. I think this is an improvement.

0x0• 14 years ago

The most interesting part here is that they seem to embrace XMPP for their MSN service!

jacabado• 14 years ago

They already did for some time, I am not sure if they've done in the scope of this rebrand, it is surely an welcome addition. [1]

Don't expect that it just works with any XMPP client as it uses a proprietary authentication mechanism "very similar to Facebook" OAUTH2.[1] More popular clients have already integrated it.

That's why Windows devs drink.

[1] http://blog.process-one.net/details_on_msns_xmpp_server/

credo• 14 years ago

In early 2005, before Microsoft announced the Windows Live brand, I was a Principal at Microsoft (and was told to keep the branding information a secret - not even my direct reports (senior dev leads) could be told about it)

At that time, it seemed like a big joke to me (because a lot of senior people seemed very excited about the changes - even though it just amounted to renaming MSN as Windows Live)

I suspect that a new crop of senior leaders at Microsoft are now talking abut how excited they at the latest change.

yajoe• 14 years ago

I feel the same way. I like that they are consolidating, but part of this just feels like a new coat of paint. Further, I didn't see how this announcement fits with the Office365 identities. Are those now going to "Microsoft Accounts" as well? Or are those still Office365 accounts? Can I use Hotmail with them? What's the difference between Hotmail and Exchange Online? Can I migrate back and forth?

Unless something radically changed in the last 6 months, the two identity infrastructures are completely separate with one tenuous federation holding them together. And the two groups of products -- consumer and business -- will still be unnecessarily separate.

jcc802• 14 years ago

This happens at small businesses too. And, it's actually a lot sadder because truly nobody cares. At least MS will get some blog posts about people being confused or complaining. Small business execs who are hyped up for a re-branding usually don't even get that.

eblume2• 14 years ago

I work in biotech and this is rampant there - our company changed names three times before we ever had a product (or any revenue at all). These were not small name changes, either - they redecorated the entire office to the new company colors each time.

marcusf• 14 years ago

I must say I love the marketing focus of this announcement together with the one last week (or so) about just having three versions of Windows 8. Feels like a new kind of Microsoft.

MartinCron• 14 years ago

I agree. This is what having healthy market pressure on all sides does. It makes me (almost) want to go buy a Windows Phone 7 Phone.

bergie• 14 years ago

I wanted to think that way as well. But scratch a bit of the surface and you'll find the same old Microsoft, just wearing some lipstick.

ardillamorris• 14 years ago

Finally something to say "you go Microsoft!" - Windows Live was so DOA that you couldn't make lemonade with it!

webwanderings• 14 years ago

So does that mean I no longer need to feel guilty for not using my @live.com email account?

Microsoft you were "not live" anymore for me when you decided to bring a wall between your Internet services and your Windows XP.

Flemlord• 14 years ago

I hope nothing happens to Windows Live Writer. It saves me lots of time when blogging.

kmfrk3• 14 years ago

And nothing of value was lost.

Seriously, their "Messenger" software was the most emblematic of this. If memory serves, the name of the program in chronological order is:

1. Windows Messenger

2. MSN Messenger

3. Live Messenger

4. Messenger

The constant needless iterations of the software - which was basically perfect around MSN Messenger - made it suck so much, because they wanted to cram social gunk into it, add toolbars, and revamp the interface for no goddamn reason that I would willfully give it up and shun digital contact with my friends, since I don't have a Facebook user.

This is why Windows users drink.

josephcooney• 14 years ago

nothing of value was lost? There was no mention of Windows Live Writer in the announcement, which saddens me a bit. It is the best piece of software of its kind that I know of for writing blog posts etc.

hartez• 14 years ago

It was the best piece of blogging software available. Then they did that horrible ribbon redesign and ruined a near-perfect interface.

lucianof• 14 years ago

Your point - that the software was at its peak when it was called MSN Messenger - is exemplified by the fact that most people still call it MSN Messenger. It seems even teens, who've probably never seen this brand out in the wild still call it MSN.

kmfrk3• 14 years ago

A thing that is so serendipitously weird about the program is that it has the best IM emoticons of any IM client of all time.

I think they since replaced the icons with some new eye sores, but it was fascinating how the smilies in some way revolutionized the way I and others communicated, because they really helped create a good mood and served the purpose of disambiguation.

Smilies and emoticons aren't a gimmick, which some erroneously believe; it's just that they have to be designed properly before they can serve a purpose. For one, people have to want them because of their design, and second, they have to convey the user's mood unambiguously. Interet forums (AKA bulletin boards) often live or die by them, because the worst-case scenario results in the must insufferable atmosphere of bitter curmudgeons.

Developers at everywhere from Facebook, Skype, Google, and Tapbots don't seem to get this and just include for them for reasons they probably don't know themselves.

The smilies were actually a huge part of what made the older version of Messenger great, and for more important reasons that people would think. It was the main litmus test when I compared to competitors; none of them got it. I believe it was also fairly novel in introducing the "X is typing a message" feature, but I could be wrong on that.

It wasn't perfect by any means; the X Messenger Plus extension became mandatory fairly early on: http://www.msgplus.net.

veb• 14 years ago

Yep. I used to love this IM, but it got so bloated, so quickly that I quickly stopped using it. Now I use Google Talk. Reminds me of my old MSN :)

chrischen• 14 years ago

I still call it MSN messenger and it's because when I started using it it was originally called MSN Messenger.

Corvus• 14 years ago

From the Vista era: Windows Live Messenger

My relatives still use that. That was also the one that added advertising to the bottom of the window.

batiudrami• 14 years ago

MSN has had an ad at the bottom of the chat window for a long time - at least since version 4.X. The version which came separately with XP, 'Windows Messenger' (which would, for some reason, operate separately from newer MSN versions installed on the same PC) didn't have the ads, however.

Avshalom• 14 years ago

As a note http://apatch.org/index.php A-patch is a patch to rip out the social gunk and toolbars, I haven't used Messenger in years so I don't know if its any good anymore but it used to be great for keeping the UI tolerable.

randomfool• 14 years ago

This is basically Microsoft's internal organizations being forced outward, and powerful marketing people attempting to either latch onto existing brands where inappropriate (Windows, also often Office) or build new ones (Live, SQL, Visual Studio).

What's happened now is that there's finally someone sensible with enough pull to get these back in line- Sinofsky. Core services for Microsoft are getting the Microsoft brand (Microsoft Account), and the unnecessary 'Windows' prefix is going away. It's just mail now. (Thank you very much Apple for initiating this trend).

isani• 14 years ago

Similarly, there's the lineage of:

1. Microsoft Passport

2. .NET Passport

3. Microsoft Passport Network

4. Windows Live Passport

5. Microsoft Account

It seems that whenever Microsoft releases a new strategy white paper, the Passport brand changes.

r00fus• 14 years ago

Good riddance. It's part of the nonsense that makes Microsoft look silly - first it's OLE, then ActiveX then .NET - yes, they're different, I know. However the ability for competitors like Apple to a) stick to brands and b) reuse old company brands (see iBook) when Microsoft is shedding brands like a snake molts is part of why some folks "irrationally" avoid Microsoft.

A brand is a promise - when you shed them, you are shedding responsibility to your customers. Microsoft has essentially been unaccountable to it's customers while milking them using it's monopoly cash cows for over a decade. Perhaps they're realizing this won't be the case anymore very soon.

ComputerGuru• 14 years ago

That's a completely different topic. OLE, ActiveX, .NET, MFC, WinRT - they're all entirely different technologies and, as such, have entirely different names. Good idea to keep creating new tech and abandoning it? Maybe not. But it's a complete non-sequitur to compare many techs to many names for the same tech.

georgieporgie2• 14 years ago

OLE, ActiveX, .NET, MFC, WinRT - they're all entirely different technologies

Not really. Initial versions of OLE were built on DDE. COM was the next generation of OLE. ActiveX was just COM with a DispInterface (self-describing interface to allow dynamic scripting), so named solely because of a rebranding effort to put an X into everything. .Net was, in my opinion, a ridiculous branding of what was essentially analogous to Win32, and it was only named .Net to align with the Internet craze. MFC was just an app development architecture, so as I understand it it's related in intent to WinForms.

Why was COM with a DispInterface called ActiveX, to stand alongside DirectX, when the two had essentially nothing in common with regards to meaning or context, yet MFC and WinForms, which seem related in intent, share absolutely nothing in terms of branding or name?

Microsoft's rebranding efforts just confuse everyone: developers, users, and IT.

thisisblurry• 14 years ago

Over the years, the one thing you can almost always count on from Microsoft when it comes to product announcements is their large and mostly useless chart of which version is going to have which features.

pippy• 14 years ago

This was great till I got to the renaming of Outlook to "Mail app". Outlook still has the largest market share and completely disregards HTML standards. As someone who often has to write templates for Outlook, it's a hassle to get it to work cross platform.

I can just imagine the conversations trying to differentiate OS X mail.app and windows 8 Mail app now.

contextfree• 14 years ago

The Metro style Mail app isn't Outlook, it's a Metro style version of Windows Live Mail (which I think used to be called Outlook Express, not sure if it had any real relation to Office Outlook but if it did they diverged long ago). Outlook is still part of Office (and there have been no announcements about Metro style versions of Office apps).

chj• 14 years ago

for record, rebranding doesn't help windows mobile.

ishansharma2• 14 years ago

5 Years Later: Microsoft Says Goodbye to Microsoft Account.

I can bet this will happen.

dakrisht• 14 years ago

Thank God!

adharmad• 14 years ago

Every few years, Microsoft seems to dip its toes into single-signon for its services.......only unable to make it work seamlessly and replacing it with yet another solution.

Microsoft says goodbye to Windows Live brand

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