05.27.09
Name it “Bing” or “Kumo” or “Live” or “MSN”, But it is Dead on Arrival
It’s the product, silly, not brands and connotations
Summary: Microsoft tries to fix a poor search algorithm and limited server capacity with rebranding
Microsoft has an irksome old habit of changing the names of failed products, hoping that new names alone would resolve issues. This was tried last year with embedded Windows, it is tried this year with Vista 7 (formerly “Mojave”), it was tried many times before with the search engine, and another notable example is Origami, which is basically Microsoft’s old concept of tablet PCs. It all failed miserably.
Microsoft understands the importance of names and it also knows that unless something changes its identity, then people will refuse to give it another try. With perceived change, Microsoft hopes that people will try the new brand or new theme (user interface in a Web site, for example) that essentially wraps around the same deficient product. Such is the case with Microsoft’s supposedly ‘new’ search engine, whose reception is very lukewarm. Even Microsoft supporters do not like it.
Microsoft can attempt to be a sumo with Kumo, have a fling with Bing, but in search Google will remain king. Ouch – sorry about that, it’s late at night here.
More interestingly, according to Glyn Moody, Microsoft plays with fire when it says that things don’t work.
You have to feel sorry for Microsoft – no, really. In the search arena, it is getting taken to the cleaners by Google so comprehensively that even I feel sorry for them. Recognising this totally inability to fight Google on its own terms, Microsoft has decided to take a bold approach: run lots of ads suggesting that search – *all* search – is broken, and that there must be a better way…
The search bribery attempt [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] has already reached its end as the company loses billions — that’s right, billions — in this crucial area. There is a lot at stake. █
“Every time you use Google, you’re using a machine running the Linux kernel.”
