问HN：微软从不断令人烦恼的品牌重塑中获得了什么好处吗？
我不知道历史上有没有哪家公司或企业像微软那样经历过如此频繁的品牌重塑。起初，我以为那里的产品经理可能经历了身份危机，可能会在某个时候离开这个职位，这一切就会结束。但这种做法似乎从未停止，这让我怀疑这是否是一项公司政策，并且实际上对业务增长有帮助。你们中有没有人知道如此频繁的品牌重塑可能有什么商业用途？
有些人可能没有接触过很多微软的产品，因此可能没有体验过我所说的例子。举几个例子：
* Azure Active Directory → Microsoft Entra ID（也许是最糟糕的一个）
* Microsoft Threat Protection → Microsoft 365 Defender
* Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection → Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
* Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection → Microsoft Defender for Office 365
* Azure Advanced Threat Protection → Microsoft Defender for Identity
最近的Office产品重命名：
* Office 365 Basic for Business 改名为 Microsoft 365 Apps for Business
* Office 365 Standard for Business 改名为 Microsoft 365 Business Basics
* Office 365 Premium for Business 改名为 Microsoft 365 Business Standard
* 其他某个级别则改名为 Microsoft 365 Business Premium
其他疯狂的品牌重塑：
* Microsoft Remote Desktop → Windows App (???!)
* Outlook for Windows → Outlook Classic
在Microsoft 365品牌重塑之后，整个Office系列又被重新命名为Microsoft Copilot 365。
还有一些产品的命名完全没有意义，比如Windows OneDrive与Office/Microsoft 365中的OneDrive并不相同。其他一些产品的命名极其混乱；比如Xbox、Xbox 360、Xbox One、Xbox One S/X、Xbox Series X/S。我不禁想，这些名字一定是有人故意选择的，绝对不可能在审查过程中没有人注意到这些问题。
另一个可能对黑客社区熟悉的例子是.NET（最初这个名字就不好，但不论这一点）。开源版本的.NET Framework的新名称叫做“.NET Core”，当时我们在工作中通常将使用旧版.NET（闭源的）项目称为“.NET Projects”，而将新项目称为“.NET Core”项目。后来，微软决定去掉“Core”（这也是一个最初就不好的名字），并在内部将使用旧框架的项目称为.NET Framework项目，因此现在我们有两个框架，一个叫“.NET”框架，另一个叫“.NET Framework”框架。
感谢上天，我在工作中不再需要处理很多微软的产品，但当我不得不处理时，我惊讶于那些我离开时看起来完全相同的东西却有了完全不同的名称。我最近发现一个团队设立了一套“通用语言”，他们同意在内部使用，以指代他们正在使用的微软产品，以避免混淆。
再一次，我的问题是，微软为何坚持这种疯狂的品牌重塑政策？让人们一直感到困惑真的有助于他们的营销策略和业务增长吗？
查看原文
I know no company or business in history that had the amount of rebranding that Microsoft did, initially I thought that the product manager there might have had an identity crisis, and he/she will be leave the position at some point and this it will be over. But this practice does not seem to end ever, which made me wonder if it is a company policy and it actually helps the business growth. Does any one of you know any possible business use to such intensive rebranding?<p>Some of you might have not dealt with many Microsoft products so you might have not experienced examples of what I am talking about, so to name a few:<p><pre><code> * Azure Active Directory → Microsoft Entra ID (maybe the most horrible one of them)
* Microsoft Threat Protection → Microsoft 365 Defender
* Microsoft Defender Advanced Threat Protection → Microsoft Defender for Endpoint
* Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection → Microsoft Defender for Office 365
* Azure Advanced Threat Protection → Microsoft Defender for Identity
</code></pre>
Office products recently:<p><pre><code> * Office 365 Basic for Business is renamed to Microsoft 365 Apps for business
* Office 365 Standard for Business is renamed to Microsoft 365 Business Basics
* Office 365 Premium for Business is renamed to Microsoft 365 Business Standard
* Some other tier was then renamed to be Microsoft 365 Business Premium
</code></pre>
Other insane rebranding:
* Microsoft Remote Desktop -> Windows App (???!)
* Outlook for windows -> Outlook Classic<p>And the entire Office things after the Microsoft 365 rebranding, is now being rebranded again as Microsoft Copilot 365<p>Some other products do not even make any sense, like Windows OneDrive that not the same as the OneDrive you get with Office/Microsoft 365. Some other products have extremely confusing naming; XBox, Xbox360, Xbox One, Xbox One S/X, Xbox Series X/S. I can’t stop thinking that someone intentionally choose them to be that confusing, no way their review cycle could not have noticed any of that.<p>Another example that might be familiar for the hacker community is .NET (which is a bad name initially but disregarding that) The new name for the open source version of the .NET Framework was called “.NET Core”, back then at work we used to refer to old projects that used .NET (the closed source one) as “.NET Projects” and the new ones as “.NET Core” projects, then Microsoft decided to drop the “Core” (which was, again, a bad name initially), and referred internally to projects that used the old framework as .NET Framework projects, so now we have two frameworks, one called the “.NET” framework and other called the “.NET Framework” framework.<p>Thankfully I no longer have to deal with a lot of Microsoft products at work, but when I have to, I’m just astonished by how much things that are just literally the same of how I left them are having totally different names, I found out lately that a team had set up a “ubiquitous language” set that they agreed to use internally to refer to the MS products they are using to avoid confusing.<p>Again, my question, is there any sane reason why Microsoft keeps this insane rebranding policy? Is making people confused all the time actually help their marketing strategy and growth?