Microsoft has made two big product name announcements in the last couple of days:
- Monad (formerly the Microsoft Shell or Management Shell) has been renamed to Windows PowerShell. I, personally, am disappointed; Monad is a great name (grade-school sound substitutions aside) and had a decently geeky pedigree to interest folks who aren’t normally willing to look at innovations coming out of Redmond. I’ve personally been able to get at least two of my friends to look more closely at it (and ultimately pronounce it a “Cool Idea!”) just because they couldn’t believe that a Microsoft product would be named for something that esoteric. At the same time, it was sufficiently unique that it could be easily turned into a visible and valuable brand by a group with as much marketing muscle as Microsoft. Ah, well.
- Perhaps less surprising given the recent Office 2007 announcement, Exchange 12 is now officially Exchange Server 2007. Personally, I was hoping for something a bit snazzier, like Windows PowerMessaging Server 2007, built on Windows PowerShell technology.
Windows PowerShell really is a terrible, terrible name. At least by my usual standard of whether, on first hearing it, I think, "Aaagh! Save me from the marketing demons!"
So now a great product is stuck with a name that’s more generic than Gene Generic from Generica, GN.
I weep.