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Microsoft Wave: By any other name please

The casual observer could be mistaken for thinking that Microsoft has a preoccupation with the name "Wave".
Written by Chris Duckett, Contributor

Picture yourself as a member of the Microsoft UK marketing team: you've probably busted your gut for the past few months putting together a new site and then the company in Mountain View goes and announces a product of the same name.

What do you do:

  1. Brainstorm up an entirely new name?
  2. Curse the gods and pick a new name?
  3. Use up all your lifelines (50:50, phone a friend, ask the audience) and decide on a new name?
  4. Nothing and hope no one will notice.

I swear that I never intended this blog to become a running commentary on Microsoft's marketing efforts, but when the software giant keeps selecting option D and shooting itself in the foot, it needs to be pointed out.

mswavetn.png

A showcase of Microsoft innovation is given an "innovative" name. (Click image to enlarge)

For a site that promotes Microsoft's world-changing blue monster, one would hope that the first thing to change is the name of this site. And as ZDNet UK editor Rupert Goodwins points out, what's with the copyright symbol in the logo itself?

A love of wave-esque names appears to be endemic to all arms of Redmond though, with a Microsoft Research project creating a device dubbed Wayve.

If you can explain the © symbol or anything else about Microsoft Wave, we'd love to hear from you in the talkback.

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