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Microsoft Wave

Jérôme Flipo [PersonRank 10]

Tuesday, July 28, 2009
14 years ago4,310 views

Available now. http://www.microsoft.com/uk/wave/home.aspx

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Are they trying to confuse people on purpose?

Jérôme Flipo [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

I would rather say they're trying to get some buzz.

Geeks can't wait for Wave invites, and they console themselves by watching MS poking at Google in the "who's the ugly giant now?" fight.

MS put a RT button, geeks makes the trick viral, and MS wait for their new image. For free.

The message could rather be: "Tired of hearing about promising technologies that will either fail or won't ever come? Check our nicely designed (but slow) website to know what we deliver".

http://blogs.msdn.com/stevecla01/archive/2009/07/27/microsoft-wave-launched.aspx

Twitter is becoming the new channel for live corporate fights. http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/27/verizon-uses-twitter-to-trash-talk-att/

David Hetfield [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

I won't be surprised if Google will open their wave in the next few days.

By the way,
why didn't Google trademark 'Wave' to themselves?

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

> why didn't Google trademark 'Wave' to themselves?

I'd be surprised if it were possible to trademark a normal word from the dictionary... perhaps the best you can do is create a service mark associated to one specific use? E.g. "Wave" for a real-time collaboration tool (or the full phrase "Google Wave")? But I'm no lawyer, so this is all just guesswork.

And to continue the guessing, it might be possible that Microsoft planned their site before Google Wave was released. I also don't think it would confuse many people because who besides Google experts (like most of us!) have heard of early-developer release Google Wave?

David Hetfield [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

[put at-character here]Philipp
In that case, Google could use 'Google Office' instead of 'Docs'.
The same with 'Windows'.

The real issue is who thought of 'Wave' before.

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

> In that case, Google could use 'Google Office' instead
> of 'Docs'.
> The same with 'Windows'.

Well, in the case of my example they probably could not, because then "Office" would be registered for use with "a software office to handle and create files" etc. But again I'm no lawyer and I don't know the specifics of service marks and trademarks and so on. (For instance, there is an "OpenOffice" and it's similar in type to MS Office, and apparently they weren't sued so far [?] so maybe Google could indeed name their product "Google Office?").

Any trademark lawyer in the house? :)

KMB [PersonRank 7]

14 years ago #

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_(Nice)_Classification_of_Goods_and_Services

Zim [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Kidish.

WebSonic.nl [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

This is really silly. Even the logo (the wave part) looks a little like Google Wave. Microsoft should have thought of a cool name for theire so called 'cool' technologies website. But then again Microsoft knows that Google Wave will become something big....

http://www.websonic.nl/nieuws/072009/images/microsoft_wave.jpg

Zim [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

PS: The reflection at the bottom is a good example of what you don't have to do.
First, elements are moved. But the worst is that the usb cable is not being reflected nicely.
Designers, if you are reading this: Reflecting "3D" elements is not as easy as flip vertical+gradient! ¬¬
Also, notice that the cable is trying to be reflected in the background, but in the connector part it casts a shadow (if that's a reflection, something is terribly wrong).
Whatever.

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

> For instance, there is an "OpenOffice" and it's similar in
> type to MS Office, and apparently they weren't sued so far

Oh they're very careful about that. See their "About Us" page:
http://www.openoffice.org/about_us/summary.html

"Because of trademark issues, OpenOffice.org must insist that all public communications refer to the project and software as "OpenOffice.org" or "OpenOffice.org 1.x," and not "OpenOffice" or "Open Office."

Kirby Witmer [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Microsoft's been using the Wave name for awhile now. Even before Google as far as I could find.

For example the last launch of Microsoft's Live products was called Live Wave 3.

Side note: I think its funny that (most) everyone automatically assumes Microsoft copies others.

David Hetfield [PersonRank 10]

14 years ago #

Force of habit Kirby... ;)

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