Rumor: Microsoft could ditch the Windows brand after Windows 8

Emil

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This week at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference, Andy Lees, Microsoft's president of the Windows Phone Division, said that his company would eventually have just a "single ecosystem" for PCs, phones, tablets, and even the TV. Microsoft has hinted at such a plan before, with its three screens and a cloud strategy, but never so explicitly.

"You can have full PC compute power available in whatever form factor you like," Lees said, point out that the Windows on ARM demo motherboards were smaller than mobile phones. "We won't have an ecosystem for PCs, and one for phones, and one for tablets — they'll all come together." Lees also said that Microsoft wants to provide "coherence and consistency" across different devices, "particularly with Xbox," and that the goal isn't just to share UI, but also core technologies like Internet Explorer.

This is my next believes that Microsoft is actually planning something far more radical, citing an unnamed source. Not only does Microsoft want to harmonize Windows for PCs and Windows Phone, but also the Xbox operating system sometime within the next four years. This timeframe lines up with both the end of the Xbox 360's 10-year lifecycle and the end of Windows 8's expected three-year cycle. In other words, Windows 8's successor may run on PCs, tablets, phones, and the next-generation Xbox when it arrives in 2015 or 2016.

Last but not least, Microsoft is supposedly considering ditching the "Windows" brand name in favor of something new. The idea is to rebrand its operating system with something that better fits with the company's vision of the future.

It does not at all surprise me that Microsoft wants to have the same OS, or at least some form of it, powering all of its products. Microsoft dropping the Windows brand, however, is something that I just can't wrap my head around. Of course, crazier things have happened, and a lot can change over the next few years, but I just can't picture it.

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Ditching "Windows" will be the best move they ever made, but yeah, it's gonna be strange. STill, they should try to get rid of the stigma Win95 left on the brand name. :p But, of course, if they call it "Bucket" and it looks just like Windows.. then it won't really matter. They'll have to come up with a new approach to their UI, I think.
 
You say no more Windows Microsoft? Looks like they love screwing over the PC enthusiasts. .
 
As long as Ballmer is the CEO there will be a Windows everything.

Recently he said: "If you cut me open and saw what was inside, [It's] Windows. Windows. Windows. Windows. Our company was born on the back of Windows. Windows underpins a huge percentage of all of our success, all of our profitability, all of the important things that we do. So, how important is it? 'Very' would be a very fair answer." /src: http://www.winsupersite.com/article...mer-discusses-future-microsofts-future-139678
 
i kinda agree with the guest 2nd post. if Microsoft seriously decided to dump the windows brand then i can see something like newegg or tigerdirect sales dropping in the future. wouldnt doubt the linux and mac goons will post in this thread just to troll. guess i be sticking with windows 7 64 for a very long time :(
 
That's like when Xerox was told it almost had to give up its name due to a lawsuit. Wanna xerox something?
 
You know what, this rumor ties in with the last rumor that Microsoft was planning on making Xbox 360 games playable on PCs. It only makes sense: this whole unity, and sense of consistency across Microsoft devices and services is what might be pushing Microsoft to do this.
 
rumors rumors ....assumptions assumptions. another shittty article. why would a company get rid of a brand that has been its biggest success? that's like saying apple getting rid of the i. there is hardly a hint for this move anywhere. who writes this crap?
 
Guest said:
rumors rumors ....assumptions assumptions. another shittty article. why would a company get rid of a brand that has been its biggest success? that's like saying apple getting rid of the i. there is hardly a hint for this move anywhere. who writes this crap?

That is why it's called a rumor, bright one.
 
Guest said:
rumors rumors ....assumptions assumptions. another shittty article. why would a company get rid of a brand that has been its biggest success? that's like saying apple getting rid of the i. there is hardly a hint for this move anywhere. who writes this crap?

Another shittty comment. Why would you even type something so stupid? Article states that it's a RUMOR from an external source, you acknowledge it, yet still try to bash the writer, even after he expresses his own doubt and disbelief...who writes this crap?
 
What about the Microsoft server products though? They work, really really well. A lot of IT departments would simply not be willing to suddenly trust their solutions to a different OS when the time to upgrade came around. The server OS is far too embedded into the minds of engineers and managers for them to move from Windows when Microsoft cuts the support as it does when an OS gets old.
 
What really makes me laugh though, is people think that the OS is going to completely disappear. The name is going to change THAT is the whole change. Why do people think that Microsoft, would suddenly drop full OS building entirely?

Could name it Microsoft Hell, for how bad an OS it would be. People would look at it and not be sure, but sure enough it's the OS none the less. Windows is just the name everyone's so used to, if you slapped on a new name people wouldn't know what you meant. What if you changed Google's name to.. Fishsticks (don't ask). You'd be saying "I'm going to Fishstick it", instead of "I'm going to Google it".

Overall really it's kinda odd, they would consider changing the name. It's only logical they want everything uniform, and completely compatible across all their platforms. So really the question is, what would you do if they changed the OS name? I'd be kinda unsure what their plans are, due to the name has stuck in everyone's mind. When you say Windows, everyone knows what you mean. Same thing goes for Mac to some extent, as it's got a fair portion of the market.
 
All good planes have inside an eject button but it isn’t so good to press it :)
 
Definitely ditch Windows name! But make sure to market the new one like no tomorrow.


Windows is so 90's, definitely not for current gen mobile devices and PC's

call Win X 10 ho ho ho ho
 
So... They are not gonna makes windows any more? They have to go out og business because they dont have the operating system for the whole PCs. Will someone step up and make an os that will run windows?

-nonny
 
I find this rather ironic considering that Apple pretty much is on track to do this over the next few months...
 
Now, I may be wrong, but I seem to remember something called DOS around Microsoft long before Windows was popular on computers. My first computer, back in 1990, ran DOS 5.0 with a GUI called
EZMENU. Now it was a graphical GUI, but it ran on DOS. All of the programs were DOS programs. I did not get Windows until Windows 3.0, and only then because my wife bought a program called Alphabet Blocks. Then, I had to upgrade my RAM, Video Card and add a Sound Card to run with Windows. Wait.... Windows hasn't changed a bit, I'm still upgrading to run Windows (7).
 
Seems odd to change a name of the world most popular OS, but thats just me. probably wont sound so crazy in 5 years though, with what they have planned.

Guest said:
Windows hasn't changed a bit, I'm still upgrading to run Windows (7).
If you want the latest OS chances are you going to have to upgrade your hardware as well, its not a new concept. Upgrading your computer these days is a hell of allot less expensive compared to 10 years ago, so dont know what your problem is.
 
Personally, I wouldn't mind a new OS name to replace Windows, it would be refreshing. And the way things are changing so fast in the world today, I think most people can handle an OS name change. I had hope Linux would of made it a bit more mainstream, to many distros and not user-friendly enough, and Mac, still cost too much for me.

So I guess I will be stuck with Microsoft for a while yet. But I am curious what name they will choose as it will need to be something really catchy and hopefully meaningful. They should have a big contest and have people submit names for the new OS.
 
They can change it... they need to transition it though... I'd say if they decided to make the name "Live" they could release "Windows 8 Live", "Windows Phone Live" and "Xbox Live" is already there... so they just put Windows 8 in smaller print on the box with a big fat LIVE right below it... and keep doing that until people grab the name of the new version and go with it... then, after a successful version, they can drop the windows part if they want...

They just gotta make sure it doesn't stink tho... kind of like how, unfortunately, the name VISTA took hold. Most people just say, "Oh man, you're running Vista?" they don't say "Windows Vista" every time...
 
Lets see, Microsoft wan'ts to be on all platforms, they want market dominance and are currently fighting other platform's for it, and they have investments in Linux companies.

Since they kept their connection to SuSE (the original spelling), so how long til they use that MSuse (anagram of Use MS)?

Their best option, might be to develop their window manager, and base it on Linux, like was talked about in 2003 by Robert Cringely
 
Microsoft Research has been quietly working on a research OS called "Singularity" for years...
 
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