Microsoft further confuses their Office web branding

Yesterday Microsoft announced, among other things, that they would soon release a web-based version of their office suite, along the lines of Zoho Office and Google Docs. This announcement is a major step forward for the company and allows them to target users of other browsers and operating systems. As Micheal Arrington said, “Thank you Google” for kicking them in the shorts enough that they actually created a product that people want, rather than delivering a product and telling people this is what you get.

However, unless something changes Microsoft could still fumble the ball on this one through a confusing brand strategy for Office on the web. Currently, Microsoft has the following Office related websites/brands:

• Office Online — A website where users can download templates for the Office software
• Office Live Workspace — A website or sharing files between the Office desktop software and Web
• Office Live Small Business — A service that Microsoft offers for domain registration, website & email hosting. It also has some online CRM and project management components.

Add to that the new brand of “Office Web Applications” for these new web-based versions of the Office Applications. Also be sure not to confuse any of this with the Windows Live branded software and websites, and Mesh.com, which we will not even go into here. Personally, I think that Microsoft needs to pick a single overall brand for the web and create a consumer & business strategy around them. They started down this road with the original “Live” brand, but they have bobbled it terribly and managed to confuse most people that I have talked to. It looks like they will continue this trend with the release of these new products, which is upsetting because they look great, and should serve as a wake up call to Google to get their products out of beta and make some real improvements to them.