If you follow the news for the last one year. A company that has gone on a rampage to change the branding of most of its product lineups has been Microsoft. The changes have come in different flavors. Be it the Logo, the Name of the product or the complete omission of the naming conventions like "Metro".
If you really look at the history of Microsoft, they have been a company that was very rigid in their branding and had some really confusing naming for all their product lineups. Suddenly come the year 2012-2013 and they seem like a really cool company and are really capitalizing on their strengths. And by strength i mean the X-BOX brand and the Office brand and to some extent the Windows brand. These have been the winners for Microsoft for many years now and most of the revenue comes from them.
They are starting to simplify the things before the big launch of the Windows 8 OS. They want all things windows, office and X-box. This was recently evident when there were rumors of the Windows Phone marketplace being renamed as the Windows Phone Store. Sounds simple to me. Call the Windows OS store as Windows 8 Store , phones store as Windows Phone Store and so on. Consistency generally reduces confusion.
What this has done for Microsoft is that people are much more aware of the parent brands being referred here. I mean who in the US doesn't know the X-BOX these days?
The fate of many upcoming products from Microsoft is riding on these carrier branding. For example the X-BOX SmartGlass that is slated to be launced this fall takes advantage of the X-BOX brand name even though it might be implemented in Windows 8 and Windows Phone. Similarly music and video hubs are renamed to Xbox music and Xbox video. At least the array of these product portfolios in the future will be a little easier to differentiate and choose form.
If you really look at the history of Microsoft, they have been a company that was very rigid in their branding and had some really confusing naming for all their product lineups. Suddenly come the year 2012-2013 and they seem like a really cool company and are really capitalizing on their strengths. And by strength i mean the X-BOX brand and the Office brand and to some extent the Windows brand. These have been the winners for Microsoft for many years now and most of the revenue comes from them.
They are starting to simplify the things before the big launch of the Windows 8 OS. They want all things windows, office and X-box. This was recently evident when there were rumors of the Windows Phone marketplace being renamed as the Windows Phone Store. Sounds simple to me. Call the Windows OS store as Windows 8 Store , phones store as Windows Phone Store and so on. Consistency generally reduces confusion.
What this has done for Microsoft is that people are much more aware of the parent brands being referred here. I mean who in the US doesn't know the X-BOX these days?
The fate of many upcoming products from Microsoft is riding on these carrier branding. For example the X-BOX SmartGlass that is slated to be launced this fall takes advantage of the X-BOX brand name even though it might be implemented in Windows 8 and Windows Phone. Similarly music and video hubs are renamed to Xbox music and Xbox video. At least the array of these product portfolios in the future will be a little easier to differentiate and choose form.
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