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Comment by cptskippy | Hacker News Reader

One of the problems Microsoft has that others don't is brand confusion. They like to ride on their own coat tails so distinct and unique products that are completely unrelated are often called the same thing.

What do you call Microsoft's personal email client? Outlook.

What do you call Microsoft's web based personal email service? Outlook.

What do you call Microsoft's enterprise email client? Outlook.

What do you call Microsoft's web based enterprise email client? Outlook.

Google doesn't have this problem because Gmail is Gmail.

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Good lord, the brand confusion.

I work with Microsoft's enterprise instant messaging/unified communications platform. It used to be called Lync, which, whatever, meh, it's a name. When Microsoft acquired Skype, they decided to rename the next iteration of Lync, Skype for Business. Skype and Skype for Business are two completely different products, running on top of different protocols that just barely inter-operate. It's absurd how much confusion this rebranding has caused.

Have you used One Drive yet? There's 2. :)

And there's Office Communicator - was that another name for Lync?

Well, technically speaking the web based ones are called Outlook Web Access. And I don't feel there is confusion. How is it different with Microsoft that Outlook is Outlook, from how with Google Apps Gmail is Gmail? Just like with Outlook there are enterprise versions of Gmail too. Is it feature parity?

If Outlook Web Access worked or even looked at all like Outlook, it would be less confusing. Features and UI are completely different, and switching between the two if needed is a huge pain.

Nope! And thanks because I forgot about OWA! OWA is the self hosted web client for Exchange. That's another completely distinct product unrelated to Outlook 365 or Outlook.com.

Is this what's happening with Skype and the upcoming Redstone 2 builds for windows? If i remember right, mobile to pc messaging was pulled from Redstone 1 and will be included in Skype later on.

Things get confusing when you deal with Skype for Business, too...

Have you used One Drive? What about One Drive for Business? The should bring back A Drive and B Drive.

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