Microsoft Will Have To Rename SkyDrive 274
SmartAboutThings writes "A month ago, Microsoft was involved in a legal battle in the United Kingdom, when the court found that there was a conflict between Microsoft's SkyDrive and a trademark owned by the British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSkyB). Back then, the UK court ruled that Microsoft was infringing the BSkyB's trademark. And now we have confirmation that Microsoft will be forced to change the SkyDrive brand name. This is quite a big branding issue for Microsoft. What are they going to call it? DriveSky? And chances are that the name change will be worldwide and not only in the United Kingdom."
FlyDrive would be a better name (Score:4, Interesting)
or just F-Drive; C and D are your disk drives; E is the USB drive; so F-Drive is the Cloud storage drive letter.
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/media/f?
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A lot of companies map the H: drive to the user's home folder. HDrive.
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If you installed Windows XP on a computer with a build-in (USB) all-in-one card-reader, the Windows drive will default to H instead of C. (tip: unplug the card-reader before installing Windows XP.) /windows/ directory on C.
It's amazing how much software misbehaves when the C drive is an empty card-reader slot. For example exported Autocad profiles are hard-coded to drive letters, so you can't migrate your Autocad settings to/from computers that don't have the
You could actually work around the problem if Windows XP was trying to install to a drive letter other than "C". During install you would create the partition (it would be drive letter whatever), immediately delete the partition, and then recreate it. It would recreate as drive "C".
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Sorry, but on my machine, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, Q, R, S, Y, and Z, are already in use.
Instead, they should make it A:\ -- and when it goes down for some reason, the error message can be:
Not ready reading drive A
Abort, Retry, Fail?
Re:FlyDrive would be a better name (Score:5, Funny)
How about Drive Eh? For our Canadian friends.
So it would be:
Not ready reading drive Eh
Abort, Retry, Fail?
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Shouldn't it be:
General Failure reading drive A
Abort, Retry, Fail?
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Sorry, but on my machine, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, Q, R, S, Y, and Z, are already in use.
Instead, they should make it A:\ -- and when it goes down for some reason, the error message can be:
Not ready reading drive A
Abort, Retry, Fail?
That is quite awesome. I'd use it just for that!
Given how frequently Microsoft web products have been rebranded so far (rebranding everything to "Live" and then moving away from that), I'm not sure how much this rename will really matter.
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how frequently Microsoft web products have been rebranded so far
Bing Drive?
Passport Drive?
MSN DRive?
Vista Drive?
ME Drive?
(personally I think their strongest brand is XBox; so "XBox Drive" would be their best bet if they actually want it to succeed)
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Yeah, I don't think "Xdrive" would end up with fewer trademark lawsuits.
It was "Windows Live Folders" originally.
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Re:FlyDrive would be a better name (Score:4, Funny)
Then it conflict with my floppy drive... :)
They should call it "BitBucket" (Score:5, Funny)
Data in, nothing out.
How about... (Score:3, Funny)
MeTooDrive or Me2Drive. Since Microsoft only copies things that others do at this point, they should just grab the Me2 prefix to replace the G or i from all of Google's and Apple's products.
Re:How about... (Score:5, Informative)
SkyDrive (formerly Windows Live Folders when it came out in August 2007) predates Google Drive by 5 years, Apples iCloud by 4 years and DropBox by a year. So how exactly is it a "me too" service?
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SkyDrive (formerly Windows Live Folders when it came out in August 2007) predates Google Drive by 5 years, Apples iCloud by 4 years and DropBox by a year. So how exactly is it a "me too" service?
Because Apple first introduced the iDisk in 2000.
(iDisk was part of iTools, which became .Mac, then MobileMe, and finally iCloud. iDisk was dropped in iCloud, and the iCloud storage is not comparable in functionality.)
Re:How about... (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, much as I might like some Microsoft bashing, I think it's dumb to criticize a technology company for copying others. In science and technology, you're *supposed* to build off of other people's work. Otherwise, you're reinventing the wheel.
So if you're going to criticize Microsoft for copying others, it only makes sense to me if they make a substandard copy that offers no advantages. Even if it's an equivalent copy to the best thing around, that's still doing a pretty good job.
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riSKY (Score:2)
it's got s.k.y on it right there, tells the truth and sky-tv can't claim it.
best marketing name is .... (Score:5, Funny)
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Remember the JizzDrive from GTA2? I think the time has cum.
What are they going to call it? (Score:4, Funny)
Synonyms: blast, breath, breeze, draft, heavens, ozone, puff, sky, stratosphere, troposphere, ventilation, waft, whiff, wind, zephyr
ZephyrDrive, PuffDrive, BreezeDrive
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Damned shame. I was looking forward to hearing about victims of a DriveSky.
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ZuneDrive
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Lack of Due Dilligence, or Hubris? (Score:3)
This happened before with the XBox name. It is difficult to believe that a company like Microsoft, bolstered by batteries of lawyers with copyright, patent, and trademark expertise, could have pulled such a boneheaded move. Were they playing legal chicken with the Brits, or did they really, truly screw up?
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Given how badly they screwed up the actual XBox hardware? Less reliable and more overheating problems than most laptops.
Re:Lack of Due Dilligence, or Hubris? (Score:4, Interesting)
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European trademarks have always been a problem for U.S. companies, and vice versa. Except most European companies have the foresight to see if their product violates U.S. trademark before launching it there, and rebrand as necessary.
U.S. companies instead just go ahead and ram their products through without even looking. Then they wonder why they're getting sued for trademark infringement.
And on the same topic, Microsoft could name it Ding.
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What happened is that they were naive about the Brit's totally bullshit trademark law. Nobody, unless they're a lawyer or have done litigation with Brits in the past, would ever suspect that "SkyDrive" could possibly infringe the trademark of a company which does not sell any product or service called "SkyDrive." The Brits have an asinine law and their people need to kick their government's ass.
That said, Microsoft does have lawyers, and almost certain has litigated with Brits in the past, so they should
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What about Sky Broadband or Sky Subscriber services? Kind sounds like a product they might offer. And they're both parts of BSkyB.
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across every single industry.
Sky Broadband would tend to put them at least in the same basic industry as a cloud storage service.
Easy to fix (Score:2, Funny)
Fixed with one easy change of letter: SpyDrive.
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Or SkyDive. Bring a parachute.
Names (Score:2)
CloudDrive
CloudStore
NetDrive
NetStore
WebDrive
WebStore
I just pulled those out of my ass in about 30 seconds and all of them appear to be taken already, but I'm sure someone in MS marketing can come up with something original, or they can license one they like. A new name won't be a huge problem, the bigger problem is any name recognition they had is gone.
Also, DriveSky doesn't solve anything because it was the use of the word Sky in the name that caused the trademark problems.
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Hmm...
How about NoDrive? It expresses my sentiment -and- manages to sound neat and cloudy.
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Huh... that actually does sound cool. Quick google search brings up a sourceforge project called NoDrives that allows you to hide drives using registry keys. Not sure if that would be a problem or not.
Confusion (Score:5, Funny)
How many Microsoft SkyDrive users will be confused by the rename of this product and switch to Dropbox?
Both.
Not an exact name but close (Score:3)
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It depends on how closely the names are conceptually related within a fairly narrow field of use. For people in the UK, the "Sky" name is conceptually welded to the BSkyB entity in the field of consumer electronic services via network. No surprise MS got slapped.
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No one in UK apart from a stupid judge and a bunch of opportunistic lawyers confuses Sky from BSkyB with SkyDrive from Microsoft. Perhaps it should change to easyDrive as no one would confuse a cloud service with a car hire company either.
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Nobody expects consumer to confuse SkyDrive with BSkyB. Sky is arguing consumers will confuse SkyDrive with Sky's products [sky.com] like Sky TV, Sky Broadband, Sky Talk, Sky 3D, Sky Go, etc. and think that SkyDrive is made by BSkyB instead of Microsoft.
Call it by a traditional Microsoft name (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft Cloud Drive Storage Home Edition
Microsoft Cloud Drive Storage Premium Edition
Microsoft Cloud Drive Storage Enterprise Edition
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Nah. They'll have Microsoft Cloud Drive Storage Tablet Edition (also available for desktops...and also the only one you can use on desktops).
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Microsoft Cloud Drive Storage Home Edition
Microsoft Cloud Drive Storage Premium Edition
Microsoft Cloud Drive Storage Enterprise Edition
Live Mesh was the traditional name when they launched it six years ago.
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Microsoft Cloud Drive Storage Home Edition Microsoft Cloud Drive Storage Premium Edition Microsoft Cloud Drive Storage Enterprise Edition
Chair drive is better.
No (Score:2)
>chances are that the name change will be worldwide and not only in the United Kingdom
I doubt that very much.
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It has already been confirmed that indeed SkyDrive will be renamed worldwide.
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A UK court recently ruled that Microsoft's SkyDrive name infringed on a trademark owned by British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSkyB), and the software maker has agreed to change the name of its cloud-based service worldwide as a result. In a settlement issued on Wednesday, BSkyB notes that Microsoft will not appeal the court ruling and that the company will allow Microsoft to continue using the brand "for a reasonable period of time to allow for an orderly transition to a new brand."
The agreement includes financial and other terms, but neither BSkyB or Microsoft will disclose the details as the agreement is confidential. A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed the name change in a statement to The Verge.
Source: http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4574878/microsoft-skydrive-name-change-bskyb [theverge.com]
So there you go.
Sky vs Windows (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft must have realized that arguing "Sky" is a generic word, so is "Windows". That means they'd be shooting themselves in the foot by arguing that Sky (and thus Windows) isn't trademark-able.
'Oh! Oh! I know! I know! (Score:2)
Weesh... weesh... we should name it Bob! ', the intern suggested loudly with unbridled enthusiasm.
Skype (Score:3)
It's old and established name for a product but it's run by Microsoft now, are they forced to rebrand it too?
You gotta be kidding me (Score:3, Informative)
Why do I see all of the anti-MS posts? Yeah, MS has been a bastard many times, but to be swatted because they dared to use the term "sky" for their product when some other company that doesn't make anything close to the same product also used "sky" in their names is asinine. I'm sure Sky has been used in product names and company names before bskyb. You're an idiot if you think this is just fine.
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Scroogle drive (Score:2)
Drive of Sauron
Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm seeing a bit too much anti-Microsoft bias here. If we weren't talking about Microsoft I'm pretty sure we'd all be outraged by that court's decision, especially given the reaction on Slashdot to similar cases in the past.
Where was Microsoft irresponsible here? Who in their right mind would have thought that SkyDrive infringed on British Sky Broadcasting Group? Does any company or service with "sky" in the name also infringe? What about SkyTrain? Or Delta Sky Miles?
I fail to see how Microsoft did anything wrong here.
I've done naming for companies in the past and it can be an excruciating process. I'm pretty sure a company as big as Microsoft isn't cavalier about naming. If my clients are any indication, their own lawyers are a huge pain in the ass for the internet teams to deal with. They're specifically paid to be thorough and attuned to every little risk. I can't imagine how much more difficult it will be now coming up with a new name with the heightened sensitivity to even the remotest of infringement. I certainly wouldn't want to be on that naming team.
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Actually the court decision is in Microsoft's best interest. They were loosing customers due to the name ambiguity.
Just the other day I got a Win8 laptop and when I saw the SkyDrive I thought: I ain't uploading to no SkyDrive and have those pesky Brits broadcast my stuff all over the place! Get your own goddamn data!
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Who in their right mind would have thought that SkyDrive infringed on British Sky Broadcasting Group?
I dunno, the same people who might think that Apple Computer infringed on Apple Corps when they started selling music?
Of course Windows doesn't play movies and BSkyB isn't in the business of transmitting information, so there isn't likely to be any conflict between the two services.
Ever.
They will call it "SkyDrive" (Score:2)
Rename it in UK only? (Score:2)
...cause nobody outside of the UK gives a shit about Sky, and I am sure a few in the UK feel the same way.
DriveRT, FTW (Score:3)
They could go with the highly successful WindowsRT campaign and call it "DriveRT"
DriveSky (Score:2)
Nope, that's the brand name of that new flying car on display at Airventure this week.
yeah, right. (Score:2)
"This is quite a big branding issue for Microsoft."
Oh yeah, I'm sure the owners of hotmail.com/live.com/outlook.com, MSN Search/Windows Live Search/Bing, and MSN Messenger/Windows Live Messenger/Office Communicator/Lync are lying in bed awake at night over this.
I have an idea for a great name (Score:2)
Call it DevNull. Because that's what will eventually happen when you store your data "in the cloud".
That's a shame (Score:2)
MS had quite a catchy name there. I do find it odd that the article said nothing about Sky Broadcasting having a trademark on (or even using) "SkyDrive" - it seems that they're claiming ownership over anything with the word "sky" in it, and that MS is conceding. Yikes.
Painful rectal itch (Score:2)
with a name like that, it must be good!
New name (Score:2)
What about MS Cloud? That matches their Word processor.
options (Score:2)
Modern Drive (Score:2)
Seems to have worked before
Microsoft should go back to generics (Score:2)
Windows, Word. SQL Server,..
I suggest "Microsoft Cloud".
should they have won? (Score:2)
I know we all hate MS here, but doesn't it worry you that you can't have a product name with the word Sky in it.
I mean if MS renamed themselves to SkySoft or something maybe...and even then...
Seems like we just gave this company a bunch of free publicity that wasn't actually being harmed. Was anyone confused by the names?
The Cloud (Score:2)
They will just call it The Cloud and take advantage of all the free material advertising use of "The Cloud". Think of all the presentations you've seen with "The Cloud" - yup, that is Microsoft! Kind of like they did with "SQL Server" back in the day.
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I hope you knew BSkyB own "The Cloud" too :)
http://www.thecloud.net/ [thecloud.net]
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And probably concluded that either they didn't infringe, or that they could steamroll anyone else.
Or, they only did the search in the US and just assumed they'd be fine.
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And probably concluded that either they didn't infringe, or that they could steamroll anyone else.
Or, they only did the search in the US and just assumed they'd be fine.
This seems to be a recurring problem with Microsoft.
They got into trademark trouble over the name Metro
Now trademark trouble over the name SkyDrive.
There are many other examples where they are very unfocused.
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you know, that Microsoft needs is a marketing department that doesn't just say "its called .net, lets put the word .net on everything, Office.net, Visual Studio.net, SQLServer.net"... then, when showed that was such a mess they said "the new API is called WinRT, I know lets call the operating systems Windows RT too, no-one will be confused at that!", followed shortly by "can we get Bill back to do another advert where he wiggles his ass while holding a big sausage?"
Maybe they should stop getting drunk all t
Re:Good to see (Score:4)
This is the same company changed the name of its "passport" service a ludicrous amount of times:-
.NET Passport, Microsoft Passport Network, and most recently Windows Live ID)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_account [wikipedia.org]
"Microsoft Account (previously Microsoft Wallet, Microsoft Passport,
I'd have said that MS's stupidly confusing naming is marketing-over-clarity, but *it's not even good marketing!!* I bet the man on the street doesn't have a clue what MS's constantly-changing brands-of-the-week are supposed to mean to him anyway, beyond being a confusing and counter-productive mish-mash of pseudo-terminology.
The quintessential ironic example of how MS just don't get it was their (then-)latest media-player compatibility scheme called "Plays for Sure" which obviously implied Apple-style "no brainer just works" straightforwardness. They proceeded to totally undermine this by renaming it to tie in with "Certified for Windows Vista" (which also encompassed other schemes) and launched a separate, incompatible DRM/compatibility scheme for their now-defunct Zune range. Does anyone know (or care) what MS's attention-deficit clusterf*** of overlapping brands are supposed to mean?!
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Now trademark trouble over the name SkyDrive.
But on the other hand, for a British Judge to rule that any use of the word Sky with preceding or trailing letters in any combination somehow violates a someone else's brand name is a bit of a stretch. It seem more based on the fact it was an American company they could pick on easily. I'm pretty sure the SkyTrain brand name is still held by someone, even if they are no longer in business.
There were plans afoot to integrate skydrive more tightly with Windows 8.x anyway [arstechnica.com] so it may become a moot point,
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The arrogance of a big player is punished when deserved.
Because Sky Broadcasting is such a small timer...
No arrogance here, just the assumption that people could tell the difference between a media conglomerate with an overreaching opinion of its' self worth and some cloud service.
Re:Good to see (Score:4, Insightful)
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So they may claim, but alas for them, they do not actually own that trademark.
Re:Good to see (Score:5, Informative)
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What the summary doesnt make clear is that Microsoft and BSkyB reached a secret settlement on the matter.
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SKY is also a broadband ISP nowadays.
Re:Good to see (Score:4, Insightful)
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Nope, can't do that.
It would just make it more obvious there's no reason to try and institute region-restricted product availability (like region-lock DVDs and Blu-rays) because with FedEx global 24-hour shipping there's literally no place your product is inaccessible from.
Need to keep up appearances the world is still neatly carved up into sociopolitical zones in business.
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There really should be a single, global registry for all trademarks, because, with the internet, every business is a global business.
In fact, we could use "whois" for all our trademark needs.
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> There really should be a single, global registry for all trademarks, because, with the internet, every business is a global business.
That fact that a corporation can hijack language and have an artificial monopoly on a word is bullshit to begin with.
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That fact that a corporation can hijack language and have an artificial monopoly on a word is bullshit to begin with.
No it isn't. Trade mark is reputation. Without it, you could buy something labeled Coca Cola and get municipal tap water.
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I fucking hate Microsoft. That said. "SkyDrive" does not, in any sane persons thought processes infringe upon "BSkyB". British courts are insane.
Nah, MS just shit on too many people, and few of them turned out to be UK judges.
Re:Good to see (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not on BSkyB,
BSkyB is a shortform for British Sky Broadcasting Group PLC.
They use "Sky" in branding for all sorts of stuff, notably Sky Broadband and Sky Subscriber Services (which is their TV offering).
In that context, an internet cloud service calling itself Sky-something sounds like it's part of the Sky services, which it of course isn't. And Microsoft has no real claim on the 'Sky' brand, so they're SOL.
Re:Skynet anyone? (Score:5, Funny)
Don't you mean Sky.NET?