Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Microsoft Kumo – Meanings behind the word

You may know, but Microsoft is trying to rebrand it's Live Search service. The name that has been rumored is "Kumo". (It's already on Wikipedia…)

Why Kumo? Although Steve Ballmer irresponsibly said he doesn't know the reason, it makes perfect sense to Microsoft because it's a word for "cloud" or "spider" in Japanese. The web and cloud computing! Despite these deep meanings, the crowd did not like the sound of it and probably Mr. Ballmer felt embarrassed, thus made fun of the word himself.

Another word in the rumors is "Bing". Bing! Bing, bing! Sure does sound annoying…

Personally, I really don't mind Live Search. Front page design looks beautiful compared to Google's. The results, umm, looks like Google; is that bad? Usefulness? Not really. Name? Don't think it matters at this point. "Google it" means to search on the web and people will still use their favorite search engine or search bar, not necessarily Google Search; my preference is Google by the way…