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So why is Microsoft taking the .NET tag off Windows Server 2003, possibly the company's most important launch this year, and re-evaluating the brand's use on other software? And why doesn't anyone talk about XML, the next-generation programming language to succeed HTML that was the original impetus behind the .NET brandwagon in the first place?
"We wanted to make sure we're clear and crisp in our naming and as consistent as we can be," Neil Charney, director of Microsoft's platform strategy group for .NET, told AP.
Crisp, as in toast? Microsoft plans to extend the .NET brand by attaching a logo that can be used by other companies. Sometimes this works; the Windows flag is the Kosher triangle of consumer software compatibility. And sometimes it doesn't, like the MSN butterfly.
In other words, Microsoft still doesn't know what it's doing on the Internet. Does it want to be AOL and offer consumer-friendly ISP, email and chat services? Does it want to be Sun, Oracle, IBM and SAP and deliver industrial-strength plumbing and applications? Does it want to be Apple with multimedia software? All of the above?
More importantly, does this sound like your organization's current Internet strategy?
Thankfully, most of us don't have to juggle as many online balls as Microsoft. We can use the Internet to accomplish one or two business-critical goals, like communicating more effectively with our customers, or providing information resources to our reseller partners. At the very least, a corporate web site should reinforce our company's overall positioning and reflect the core values that differentiate it from competitors.
But does that accurately describe your current web presence? Or does your home page still look like, well, a home page?
Web sites are like annual reports; the 2001 version expired in 2003. Nothing new to say? Really? Well, at least you should come up with a new way to say it. Or not say it, as in the case of .NET.
By the way, the answer to the question about Microsoft's online strategy is, significantly, none of the above. The company's true end-play is the Xbox, a product whose brand undoubtedly came from the original business plan outlining how Microsoft would finally enter the computer hardware market sideways through the videogames channel. The next digital battle is being fought in the living room, not the office or the den, with Sony starring as the Microsoft of the category, allowing the real Microsoft to assume the underdog role it loves so well (anybody out there still using WordPerfect or Lotus 1-2-3?).
But even when Microsoft gets it, it doesn't get it. Check out Bill Gates showing off "Fossil" (insert own joke here), the Windows-enhanced wristwatch (ibid) based on the Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) platform he unveiled during his recent keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
What's wrong with this picture?
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The watch is upside down.
Based in Brussels, Chris
Clark is senior vice president of strategic services for
Mainsail. He is also the author of "Byte Back," a monthly
humor column for Adweek Magazines' Technology Marketing.
Click here for more information on Mainsail
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