Every so often when the moon is full and perspiring Ballmer is in its third phase, Microsoft takes one of it’s products and changes its name re-brands it.
I can’t be the only user who refuses Hotmail as part of their email filters – its usually junk, often a scam and occasionally a throwaway mail address for the purposes of insult. Either way, Hotmail is about as welcome in my in-box as a pork chop at a vegetarian conference.
It is being reported by several sources that the aforementioned Hotmail is to now be called “Newmail” – Not really so much new (although as you will see by the comments it appears to be trying to emulate another Google product):
It’s a minimalist new look for Hotmail, looking closer to Gmail’s redesign a few months ago……
Source: Cnet
It will come as no surprise to many that the observation of Microsoft imitating is rearing its bald sweaty head again, although in the case of Hotmail, is there a point? Does anyone trust a Hotmail email? – I’ll let you answer that. I suggest you follow the link above, I don’t think anymore time needs to be devoted to this tot.
DanceFailLIVE – Nobody does it better than Microsoft!
Since Microsoft seems to love the word “LIVE” let me introduce you to DancefailLIVE (patent pending 
) We’ve seen many times in not only the products but the PR excercises behind them, that Microsoft is rather clueless when it comes to knowing what people want or how they behave. Its very similar to the “reaching out” that the Advocates do (who talks like that in the real world?) and infact the origins of my observations of this bizarre way the Microsoft Advocates have of talking goes back to 2008 when one certain MVP (who liked to back up his own arguments here with multiple accounts) over on Microsoft Watch, when I repeatedly remarked “Who on earth actually talks like this?”
I digress. We’ve seen failed PR stunts of Microsoft before. From the silly shoe commercial which nobody seemed to find funny to the fake funeral for the iPhone when Windows Phone 7 was announced. Oh dear.
Not deterred by the stage antics of Steve Ballmer, Microsoft seem to have outdone themselves this time in the #stagefail stakes, which is why I give you DanceFailLIVE which was meant to promote updates to Azure platform, it consisted of live dance on stage for attendees.
As if dancing girls and cheesy techno music weren’t bad enough, the song contained a number of drugs references and lewd lyrics, among them: “CSS is my LSD”, and: “The words Micro and Soft don’t apply to my penis”. Seriously, who gave this the green light?……Perhaps a little patronised, several of the attendees took to Twitter. One tweeted: “As a former #NDCOslo organizer I must say I don’t stand behind that azure dance act. What were they thinking? It’s not ironic, it’s just bad.” “The dancing girls, hokey song, and marketing speak to MS’s Azure announcement at #ndcoslo shows how much they misunderstand their audience………Microsoft has shown just how spectacularly out of touch it can be.
Source: Cnet
But maybe its not all that bad, according to Cnet, Microsoft made a groveling apology and maybe it will take the focus from that older stage production by Microsoft that has been popular for so many years:
