Remember when Warner Bros. changed the name of its streaming service from HBO Max to Max, and then less than a year later back to HBO Max? Or when the richest person in the world proved that money has no relation to intelligence and threw the “Twitter” brand in the trash? Marketing geniuses!
Maybe it's late capitalism, maybe it's a side effect of new drugs circulating among the bigwigs of the world's most powerful companies. Or maybe it's just plain stupidity. The fact is that the practice is spreading, and fast.
In early 2025, Dell revamped its line of notebooks and retired traditional names, including XPS, perhaps the most recognizable after Apple's MacBook. The goal was to simplify. No one understood anything.
Cut to 2026, and Dell announced at CES, to no one's surprise, that it will return to using the XPS brand. They look nice.
Running behind is Microsoft. When accessing the office.com website, we come across this gem (my highlight):
Welcome to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app
The Microsoft 365 Copilot app (formerly Office) lets you create, share, and collaborate all in one place with your favorite apps now including Copilot.*
Just imagine, replacing the brand that has been synonymous with productivity apps for three decades with… Copilot, a slop generator that people generally dislike and only use because their employer requires them to.
Good for us. The less we associate critical software with big tech brands, the better. Long live Microsoft 365 Copilot — or whatever other weird name Word, Excel, and company end up with in the future.
cultofmac.com
