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Maybe They Could Spell It 'Serch'

Microsoft's rebranding of everything in sight as "Live" reached new peaks of frenzy this week when it announced a desktop search application called Windows Live Search. Only problem was, it already has a Web search called Windows Live Search.

But the funniest thing about TechWeb writer Antone Gonsalves' article on the Siamese-twin product name is the link in the article to what is apparently a video created inside Microsoft that makes fun of another aspect of the software giant's ponderous approach to branding. You've got to see "Microsoft redesigns iPod packaging" from Google's video site (which is still in beta, BTW). Here's the bottom line:

Apple's famous design quality is all over the iPod box. So what would it look like it if Microsoft designed it? Well . . . . Click to Enlarge

There's almost a fabulist element (as in fable, like Aesop's Fables, little stories with a moral) in this when you put it in the context of David Pogue's take on the new Palm Treo 700p in this morning's New York Times (login required, but it's still free). Pogue compares the new version with the 700w, which runs on Windows Mobile. He cites several of the 700w's shortcomings, and concludes, " What connoisseurs of good design really wanted, of course, was a phone with the modernized hardware of the 700W but with the more logical Palm operating system."

Both inside the box and on it, apparently, Microsoft just doesn't get how less can be more.

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