Asha Sharma cancels Copilot on Xbox as she restructures Xbox leadership

[Widey85]

@Titan

To me Copilot just sounds too generic. It’s just a noun. I don’t think of it as anything other than a general noun. Though I definitely just am not for any of the current tech names. I guess because it kinda just sounds like a discriptor. It doesn’t feel like a unique identity. Though I guess with like a decade I’d soften on it. I mean “X BOX”, “PLAY STATION”, “SWITCH”, none of these names are actually that unique but just eventually grow on you. They’re really all on the nose.

Yeah but I think Copilot is very much focus grouped for corporate - it works for their sales people to say “it acts as a copilot to your staff to enhance their productivity” to non-technical people.

It works annoyingly, as we then ended up with non-technical people chasing IT asking when we’re going to let them use it.

With Microsoft, generally always think what a corporate buyer would think - their names are always targeted at them, designed to inform what it is and tickle them, not us the general public.

Plus we’re never going to get a name like “Microsoft Stripey Turbo Tiger AI” as it needs to be sensible and workshopped to death to ensure it’s completely inoffensive to everyone worldwide…

I’m convinced it’s why the Xbox console naming conventions have been all over the place, as they’re used to naming for the latest corporate trends not consumer branding lol

[Titan]

@Widey85

…orks for their sales people to say “it acts as a copilot to your staff to enhance their productivity” to non-technical people. It works annoyingly, as we then ended up with non-technical people chasing IT asking when we’re going to let them use it. With Microsoft, generally always think what a corporate buyer would think - their names are always targeted at them, designed to inform what it is and tickle them, not us the general public. Plus we’re never going to get a name like “Microsoft Stripey Turbo Tiger AI” as it needs to be sensible and workshopped to death to ensure it’s completely inoffensive to everyone worldwide… I’m convinced it’s why the Xbox console naming conventions have been all over the place, as they’re used to naming for the latest corporate trends not consumer branding lol

That makes a lot of sense. To me Cortana is a great name as a unique video game IP fictional assist name Microsoft can leverage. But that’s as a general consumer primarily thinking of Microsoft trying to permeate pop culture and reach general audiences. Most of Microsoft’s financial success still comes from corporate B2B partners (as far as I’m aware with stuff like Azure and all their contracts). So yeah naming convention being geared toward the corporate world makes sense. It makes further sense as we see them admitting copilot largely flopped in the general consumer world and pulling back on that commercial end.

Though that also feels like Microsoft being kinda obstinate. Like idk. It doesn’t feel that big of a leap in logic to have Copilot for enterprise systems and keep Cortana for commercial use. It can be the same on the back end but have a different interface and name to suit the markets they’re in. They could even lean into the nostalgia and cringe and bring back clippy for Microsoft Office. It’s a problem that always crops up for Microsoft on the commercial end. Like you said with the naming and everything. We’ll see if Sharma understanding marketing prevents it from being a problem with Helix.