Waiting for Microsoft to Change its Name

Microsoft seems to have a hard time making up its mind when it comes to product branding. Take the newly announced ‘Skype for Business’, for example. That’s the new name for Microsoft Lync, by the way. In fact, Lync was announced in 2010 with the headline “A new name for a new generation of unified communications.” And that’s because Lync replaced Microsoft Office Communications Server, launched in 2007. And that, by the way, was the new name for Microsoft Live Communications Server, announced in 2003. Which, incidentally, was a feature in Exchange 2000 that Microsoft decided to productize. I fully expect a new name for this product by 2017.

Then there is the case of Bing. The splashy search engine with the eye candy home page launched in 2009 to rival Google. This, of course, replaced Live Search, launched a mere two years earlier in 2007. A year prior, it had been announced as Windows Live Search, which of course was the new name for MSN Search, dating all the way back to 1998.

Is your head spinning yet? I don’t think anyone would question a name change to a product from 1998, but three rebrands within three years? This is clearly a marketing problem. But is the marketing inept or intentionally trying to confuse the market? I’m not entirely sure which answer is better, to be honest. And now Microsoft’s game of branding musical chairs is starting to affect partners in the industry.

Let’s go back to Lync … I mean Skype for Business. This is actually a very popular Microsoft product that has significant industry enthusiasm behind it. So much so, that many Unified Communications vendors have products that integrate ‘Skype for Business’ into their own offering. Many have even included the now outdated ‘Lync’ brand as part of their own product name. Plantronics Aware for Lync, for example. I doubt anyone in Redmond will lose sleep over upsetting Plantronics. But the Lync name will continue to live on, only adding to market confusion.

Why would a company with a popular product rebrand it in the first place, let alone leave a very murky trail behind? And why now, when Microsoft had elevated itself to a front-runner with Cisco in the UC battle?

I’m guessing this is a heated topic when Microsoft Sales meets with Microsoft Marketing. I would advise CEO Satya Nadella to come down hard on rebranding and change the course of this Ballmer legacy practice. Branding has an indelible impact on the bottom line. How can customers demand a product if they don’t even know its name?

But seriously, what do you think the new name for ‘Skype for Business’ will be? How about Bing? Should we start a betting pool?