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AT 5:33 AM
Wednesday June 3, 2009

microsoft • starch

Microsoft wants to rename netbooks with absurd five-word phrase

Steven Guggenheimer, Microsoft's General Manager of Application Platform and Development Marketing, thinks that the term "netbook" should be abandoned. Instead, he says, such devices should be called "low cost small notebook PCs."

Bear in mind that this chap is a marketing manager: he's doing this because he thinks it will make it easier to sell the software. Microsoft's soul is so attuned to selling committee-ordained business concepts to management that it just can't help itself.

The assumed rationale is that Microsoft is trying to kill Windows XP, and wants to push newer hardware that consumers won't assume is too feeble to run Vista or Windows 7. But Microsoft's marketing efforts often suck the life out of its partners' hardware. A classic example of how efficiently it turns gold into lead is Origami, a successful stealth campaign Microsoft authored as a branding metaphor for high-end pocket PCs. The buzz around the term was palpable, but when it finally lauched, "Origami" became the godless and narcoleptic "UMPC" or "Ultra Mobile Personal Computer."

Something that had attracted enormous attention in the gadget side of tech culture faded to gray, buttoned-down Fujitsu ad spreads in Workforce Management Magazine. The dry marketing terminology made it hard to write about the devices without sounding like a press release. Something compelling became a set of specifications: a set of arguments for any given consumer to say "no."

Perhaps this is why the Zune always has that certain cold, technical measure to it: all the team's spiritual energy was dissipated battling marketing's attempts to rename it something awful.

Microsoft to use a new term for netbook [Digitimes]

54 Comments

didymos

#1 – 7:33 AM June 3, 2009

And yet, even having expended all of their spiritual energy, apparently the marketing department still won. Zune is a terrible, terrible name.

Jur9en

#2 – 7:42 AM June 3, 2009

And yet they came up with worse; Bing ??

remmelt

#3 – 7:46 AM June 3, 2009

Zune, like Bing, sounds designed to not offend anyone or anything in any way. No jokes can be made about the name (Prune? Dune? King? Fling? Nothing there.)

The best part is that they're not creative enough to think of the But It's Not Google pun themselves. If they would have, it wouldn't have been named Bing.

"The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that they don't think of original ideas, and they don't bring much culture into their products."

"Welcome to the social."

Anonymous Anonymous

#4 – 8:08 AM June 3, 2009

It's just Microsoft living up to their reputation (the URL is to the BusinessWeek story about the Microsoft-produced self-parody "What if Microsoft had Made the iPod?"

bardfinn

#5 – 9:27 AM June 3, 2009

QUALCOMM wants to call them Smartbooks.

Announced, what, a day after Psion announced they're dropping claim to "netbook" - ?

I bet some branding executive is wrought over that timing.

sej;at

#6 – 9:30 AM June 3, 2009

What are Microsoft's hiring policies? Are they "Get decent to excellent software engineers and get the dregs of the marketdroids?"

Brainspore

#7 – 9:31 AM June 3, 2009

That new name is too confusing. They should go with "low cost portable electronic computing devices" just to eliminate any ambiguity. Everybody knows that a "notebook" is something made of paper.

urbanodelacruz

#8 – 9:32 AM June 3, 2009

Makes sense, in an MS group-think kind of way:

NET-BOOK

the first part is about the Internet -which MS has no dominance of

the second part calls to mind MacBooks

so "netbook" doesn't quickly associate with MS and its products.

"PC" on the other hand is synonymous with wintel.

hence the "low cost small notebook PCs"

Atomische

#9 – 10:03 AM June 3, 2009

How about we just start calling them Googlebooks.

jibbles

#10 – 10:04 AM June 3, 2009

Cory Doctorow wrote: "Deluded Microsoft marketing guy has a new name for netbooks -- Boing Boing Gadgets." I think "Boing Boing Gadgets" is a great name for netbooks!

gabrielm

#11 – 10:09 AM June 3, 2009

@bardfinn

"QUALCOMM wants to call them Smartbooks."

Well, Sun would have called them Javabooks.
And Apple would have called them iBooks....

johnfdonohoe

#12 – 10:15 AM June 3, 2009

Man, apparently they didn't learn anything from the warning video "Microsoft designs the iPod."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeXAcwriid0

Their own creative services department made this to tell their marketing drones to stop the insanity.

It seems like the industry (and by extension the early adopters) have embraced Netbooks. Why fight against that?

If this is true, its another shot in the foot for MS.

Anonymous Anonymous

#13 – 10:16 AM June 3, 2009

Microsoft has a marketing guy? I've always assumed design and marketing was done by engineers there.

Anonymous Anonymous

#14 – 10:37 AM June 3, 2009

@13 engineers are actually cooler than anyone who has worked in a marketing department, ever.

marketese has the unholy ability to use 100 words to tell you about something in a way that doesn't ever tell you what it does. it's all about executing solutions, whatever the fuck that actually means.

Anonymous Anonymous

#15 – 10:44 AM June 3, 2009

I always thought Netbook was a damn stupid name... how is a tiny notebook any more or less "Net" than any other modern computer? But leave it to Microsoft to come up with worse. If it were up to me they'd be called Micronotes or something similar.

semiotix

#16 – 10:44 AM June 3, 2009

@10 (Gibbles)--I agree completely and came here to say the same thing. You could do a lot worse in terms of both description and evocation of what a netbook is than "boing boing gadget."

This needs to go viral. I'm going to hire a bunch of grad students to fan out into the coffeeshops and say loudly, "Hey, what was that multimedia alt-indie porn site you were telling me about? I want to check it out on my boing boing gadget here."

Best of all, because it's Microsoft, they probably already copyrighted those words years ago.

dculberson

#17 – 10:53 AM June 3, 2009

It still beats what the military would be likely to come up with. Here's my stab at it:

Portable Automatic Data Processing Equipment, Reduced Dimensions, Diminished Power.

johnfdonohoe

#18 – 11:03 AM June 3, 2009

And isn't Windows 7 the bridge OS between local and cloud apps? What is more NET than that?

mr.skeleton

#19 – 11:06 AM June 3, 2009

I don't think they literally intend to use the phrase "low cost small notebook PCs," but to market them as that, excluding the netbook label, or any label, really.

I also think it's really unimportant.

Daemon

#20 – 11:21 AM June 3, 2009

#10 - Actually, I think "Boing Boing Gadgets" would be a great name for a band.

Bloodboiler

#21 – 11:34 AM June 3, 2009

I think they want 'Low cost small notebook PC' to transform into image of 'computer for POOR people'.

What they really want is a market for small form factor ultramobile PC, which is basically expensive netbook preferably without a keyboard.

Neurotic Nomad

#22 – 11:46 AM June 3, 2009

...or LCSNPC for short.

serraphin

#23 – 11:47 AM June 3, 2009

Err - ok as much as I don't want to be on 'the side of the great evil'. They're actually right to call them this.

The reason the manufacturers wanted to call them 'netbooks' in the first place is so as to not corrode the mainstream notebook sales. Netbook suggests they are less than a notebook.

As most UMPCs (which is also quite a generic term to cover netbooks and items like the Samsung Q1) are actually perfectly capable of handling most apps that non-gamers/specialists would use, this was and still is a big fear for them.

Fortunatelt for them (or obviously quite intentionally) Win7 will run on most UMPC devices - even though the fat bloated thing insists on installing all 8gb of itself - then only giving you acess to 30% of that because you have a netbook licence.

But I meander - the point is MS, though they have their own grubby reasons - are actually just trying to roll back the subverted message many 'netbook' manufacturers put out (and note that Asus, the maker of one of the first UMPCs didn't call it this!).

Neurotic Nomad

#24 – 11:47 AM June 3, 2009

...or "Licks Nipk".

mdh

#25 – 12:02 PM June 3, 2009

From the link at the mothership is looks like Microsoft wants to call the things "Boing Boing Gadgets. (Jibbels said this above, as well)

As for the name they're going with, they must have had a meeting about it.

Toby

#26 – 12:15 PM June 3, 2009

What, they're going make the spellchecker suggest that as the correct spelling for "netbook"? What can I say, other than cntrl-z...

Halloween Jack

#27 – 12:30 PM June 3, 2009

Ladies and gentlemen, the last days of Trantor have begun.

Bob Ross

#28 – 12:55 PM June 3, 2009

I heard their next product is "Cload - App- hard-to-use-os-with-blue-screen-of-death-windows-vista/7/ie6-9-goes-on-the-intraweb-thingy-PC"

pffft

#29 – 2:15 PM June 3, 2009

While I understand why MS wants to get away from "Netwook", their alternative is a little ridiculous.

maybe "mini notebooks" or something.

nprnncbl

#30 – 5:39 PM June 3, 2009

And yet they're missing the obvious .NETbook!

jimkirk

#31 – 6:07 PM June 3, 2009

I dunno, it's kind of catchy. Like having "General Manager of Application Platform and Development Marketing" for a job title.

Scott

#32 – 6:47 PM June 3, 2009

I'm pretty sure "netbook" is trademarked and the company that owns it has spent the last year or two suing everyone that is using it.

Perhaps this was a simple attempt to avoid a lawsuit or drop an existing one?

13tales

#33 – 8:42 PM June 3, 2009

Naming things is really one of the (many) things that Microsoft suck at.

Apart from sounding kind of creepy (say it in your best "Saladfingers" voice, go on, elongate that "une"), Zune tells you shit all about the product.

By comparison, what's an "iPhone" ? Well, it's obviously a phone, but also kind of like an "iPod" (ie. has fun digital media stuff).

What's an "iPod"? Well, it sounds kind of like an "iMac" (ie. has fun digital media stuff) but it sounds like it's smaller and self-contained.

What's an "iMac", you ask? Well, it's like a "mac" but with something new - which turned out to be fun, internet focussed design, and fun digital media stuff, now irrevocably associated with the letter "i".

Those are names AND they're descriptive.

Zune is a name, Small Low-cost Notebook PC is a description.

snackcake

#34 – 10:24 PM June 3, 2009

I once worked for a large electronics retailer, on their website. During usability testing, we were amazed at how difficult it was for customers to find a PC or a Notebook. After extensive card sorting, and some surveys, we found out that hardly anybody (

At this same company I was once told to stop referring to vacuum cleaners as vacuums, and to call them "carpet extractors" so that they would not be confused with the growing category of carpet shampooers.

The Zen Cow Says Mu

#35 – 11:43 PM June 3, 2009

I always call these underpowered computers "craptops".

Osiris

#36 – 1:36 AM June 4, 2009

AAAAAAAAAAAARRGGGHH! When will this recession finally affect the spiritually- and ergonomically bankrupted parts of tyrannically expanding multinationals that have more money as their only cancerous goal?

TheHikingStick

#37 – 7:00 AM June 4, 2009

While the new name isn't really a name, the reason they are likely moving away from Netbook is because that name has already been used in commerce and the owner of the mark has sent cease and desist letters. This has been covered in other news outlets a month or more ago (I think /. had an item on it). That manufacturer has not produced a device under the Netbook name in a few years, but they may well prevail in their attempt to retian the mark if they can prove they had products in development that would have used that name. This may just be an attempt to avoid legal wrangling--an odd move for a company with loads of cash that seems to like legal wrangling. Maybe they only like lawsuits if they initiate them...

Takuan

#38 – 7:16 AM June 4, 2009

Elceessenpeecee has a certain poetry. For the Thai market?

papyromancer

#39 – 11:55 PM June 4, 2009

When I first read the headline I thought netbooks were to be called "Boing Boing Gadgets" from now on.

+1 for a Boing Boing Gadget

dennis

#40 – 6:13 AM June 5, 2009

M$oft names things by copying apple. Example Gadgets instead of widgets. Years late and they claim to "invent" something. iTunes becomes Zune. Why the "Z" because its newer and hipper then "X" which they also had to have in their naming lexicon. Example Mac OS X so m$ must make XP. I can here the suit's now "we got to have a x in the name kids love the letter x." I wish the world would wake up. And honestly I wish Xerox never let go of GUI or Ethernet, the world would be a better place (or at least my desk would be)

:F:

#41 – 7:55 PM June 8, 2009

It's a Webtop or what everyone usually calls it, a Mogway! Im from the future!

thank you.

bye

Nannes2

#42 – 8:58 PM August 24, 2009

The buzz around the term was palpable, but when it finally lauched, "Origami" became the godless and narcoleptic "UMPC" or "Ultra Mobile Personal Computer."
Homeschooling

Nannes2

#43 – 8:59 PM August 24, 2009

This may just be an attempt to avoid legal wrangling--an odd move for a company with loads of cash that seems to like legal wrangling. Maybe they only like lawsuits if they initiate them...
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Nannes2

#44 – 9:01 PM August 24, 2009

Nannes2

#45 – 9:02 PM August 24, 2009

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#46 – 2:34 PM September 8, 2009

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rogeriomansur

#47 – 4:36 PM September 22, 2009

I dont agree with microsoft because i like this name. Sexo Na Praia

sarafoster

#48 – 8:09 AM November 4, 2009

Microsoft is a big name . so y they need to change name ??? and 2nd microsoft already billionaire company . Online Pharmacy No Prescription

sirmac

#49 – 5:08 AM November 9, 2009

90% already now micro soft net book with previous name but now the replace name is not intelligence . So Microsoft has policy we don't know .
yournetbiz

sirmac

#50 – 5:10 AM November 9, 2009

yournetbiz

sirmac

#51 – 5:12 AM November 9, 2009

90% already now micro soft net book with previous name but now the replace name is not intelligence . So Microsoft has policy we don't know .
yournetbiz

sirmac

#52 – 5:14 AM November 9, 2009

All around the world know microsoft products with primary name but within the pessage of time microsoft why want to change name ? Any logic
yournetbiz

sarafoster

#53 – 9:33 AM November 15, 2009

This is must for population of the product. But no need to change name keep this and use Microsoft . Penny Stocks

sirmac

#54 – 11:01 AM November 17, 2009

Microsoft is very much brand conscious ans they need to develop unique products . And change name is the entire different thing might be some other policy of Microsoft. latest new gadgets

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Microsoft wants to rename netbooks with absurd five-word phrase

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