Here in lovely Britain you can walk down any high street, past the rows of empty shops and then into a massive out-of-town shopping centre. In said shopping centre, where the parking is free and there’s actual people, you can ask anyone about “Sky” and they’ll instantly know who you’re on about. In fact, you’ll probably bump into one of those guys selling Sky products, and you’ll see lots of these logos..
Yes, you know that these are all products and services from the satellite TV company who beam expensive TV into our homes. But wait, I think I’ve missed one of their products…
Heard of that? Well, the guy in Microsoft who thought “Metro” was a good brand also thought that “SkyDrive” would be a great name for their cloud storage product.
Not so.
British Sky Broadcasting, aka BSkyB, aka Sky, successfully sued Microsoft for infringing their trademark. Now Microsoft and Sky have issued a joint press release which states that Microsoft will not appeal the decision and they will rename the product shortly.
Yes. SkyDrive has been ticking over since 2007. It’s heavily marketed and integrated with every Windows Phone you use. Now that name is going in the bin.
Honestly. I’m starting to think that there’s no-one at Microsoft doing any checking. The Windows 8 GUI known as “Metro” had to vanish in Europe following a legal dispute, and now it’s SkyDrive, which looks to be disappearing globally following a “reasonable period of time to allow for an orderly transition to a new brand”.
So, let’s help Microsoft out and come up with some suggestions. What should Microsoft change the name to? MicrosoftDrive? MicrosoftCloud? What about..
Hands up for the MicroDrive!! 🙂 (Thanks to M Singh for this suggestion)..
You could name it after what you actually do with it! Cloud storage is like a box… which you drop files into…
Done!
DrinkDrive? or does that send the wrong message……..
“Please always store responsibly”.
iDrive? I can’t see a problem with that…
They will probably go with something like Xbox Drive to milk the Xbox brand even further. I think Drive365 would be more appropriate for office documents and the like.
This is quite ridiculous! It’s not as though Sky use the name SkyDrive! Whatever next – will Skype have to change their name as well? The courts should have told Sky and Murdoch to politely go away! I will never support anything that involves the Murdochs. If SkyDrive has to change its name then I agree with others that the use of Xbox and/or 365 in the name makes sense. On a more frivolous note I wonder if “Pie in the Sky” would be allowed?
Also, I wonder if the outcome would have been different if the ‘D’ had been in lower case i.e. Skydrive?