There was once a pain reliever called AIDS (because it was an NSAIDS class pain reliever- a Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug). Once the AIDS epidemic caught on with the mainstream press in 1982, the product was pulled. Personally, I've got to give the nod to a product named AIDS, even though it stands for something.
My favorite MS branding mistake has to be SharePoint deployment packages aka "Features". Who calls a feature "Feature"? How am I supposed to explain that to people? Great concept, stupid name.
And even the ones that aren't atrocious are just common nouns: windows, office, word, project, money. Leads to no end of legal headaches for them, which I think they enjoy.
It's definitely one of the worst ones I've seen, but considering almost every other product Microsoft has released, I'm not sure it's THE worst. The whole Office line, except for Word, has pretty stupid and meaningless names, and it's especially annoying that those names have become so common in normal speech now. Presentations are now almost universally called "PowerPoints" (whatever the hell in god's name that was supposed to mean in the first place) and many people talk about "Excel sheets," without seeming to know that the term "spreadsheet" ever existed.
Well, multimedia presentations at least involving pointing to things and (rarely) making points. Also, I give the Excel team a little credit for the play on the word 'cell', but not much. .NET is worlds away from making that kind of sense.
Now that I think about it, Intel's "Core" is probably even worse. I'm sure there are thousands of people now who think that "Duo Core" is something that they REALLY need and that ONLY Intel makes it, and that's probably exactly what they wanted to happen.
Discussion (25)
Whilst I love .NET, I have to agree, the product name is stupid. What does it mean???
Obviously you've never seen "McCormick's Finishing Sauce" at the grocery store.
But at least I have a clue what that is by the name.
Good point.
Technically, "Web 2.0" isn't a product name... so yeah, I'll go along with this.
It can't be the worst... Somehow. Give me a while to think.
OK, I await your counterclaim eagerly.
What about COM?
That stands for something.
There was once a pain reliever called AIDS (because it was an NSAIDS class pain reliever- a Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug). Once the AIDS epidemic caught on with the mainstream press in 1982, the product was pulled. Personally, I've got to give the nod to a product named AIDS, even though it stands for something.
Well it was a perfectly good name at the time the product launched, so it's DQ'd in my book.
"Operation: Infinite Justice", anyone?
You would think that www.microsft.net would take you to their .NET page. But no, it just goes to the standard www.microsoft.com homepage.
I'd like to remind readers of this claim that Nintendo recently released the Wii. When my dog gets too excited he sometimes releases a little wee.
How many children (not to mention adults) camped out for three days to buy a .NET?
Oh, common, there are so many stupid product/brand names out there, MS hasn't to be on the top in every categorie ;)
My favorite MS branding mistake has to be SharePoint deployment packages aka "Features". Who calls a feature "Feature"? How am I supposed to explain that to people? Great concept, stupid name.
Even restricting ourselves to Microsoft, .NET has some stiff stupid-naming competition from products like "Wince" and "M'SEXCHANGE".
And even the ones that aren't atrocious are just common nouns: windows, office, word, project, money. Leads to no end of legal headaches for them, which I think they enjoy.
It's definitely one of the worst ones I've seen, but considering almost every other product Microsoft has released, I'm not sure it's THE worst. The whole Office line, except for Word, has pretty stupid and meaningless names, and it's especially annoying that those names have become so common in normal speech now. Presentations are now almost universally called "PowerPoints" (whatever the hell in god's name that was supposed to mean in the first place) and many people talk about "Excel sheets," without seeming to know that the term "spreadsheet" ever existed.
Well, multimedia presentations at least involving pointing to things and (rarely) making points. Also, I give the Excel team a little credit for the play on the word 'cell', but not much. .NET is worlds away from making that kind of sense.
Now that I think about it, Intel's "Core" is probably even worse. I'm sure there are thousands of people now who think that "Duo Core" is something that they REALLY need and that ONLY Intel makes it, and that's probably exactly what they wanted to happen.
No, it sounds half-decent, and is slightly meaningful. Not abominable enough.
Razor Gator?
It's pretty stupid, but doesn't compare to the infamous Polish (?) window cleaning product, Sh*te.