Friday, July 22, 2005
Windows Vista
Microsoft has announced that the official name of Longhorn will be Windows Vista. Expect to hear that name a lot.
Global brand names are difficult: you don't want a name that gives the wrong impression in different languages, slang, etc. According to the article, Microsoft spent eight months researching potential names using "a process of focus groups and research to find out what name would convey idea of clarity". Did anyone check the meaning of the word in Latvian? According to a Latvian friend, Vista translates to chicken in Latvian.
Windows Chicken? It's funny but probably not a big deal. The canonical example of bad translation is the Chevrolet Nova which translates to Spanish as "it doesn't go". The claim is that this hurt sales of the car in Latin America. Apparently, that's an urban legend.
Global brand names are difficult: you don't want a name that gives the wrong impression in different languages, slang, etc. According to the article, Microsoft spent eight months researching potential names using "a process of focus groups and research to find out what name would convey idea of clarity". Did anyone check the meaning of the word in Latvian? According to a Latvian friend, Vista translates to chicken in Latvian.
Windows Chicken? It's funny but probably not a big deal. The canonical example of bad translation is the Chevrolet Nova which translates to Spanish as "it doesn't go". The claim is that this hurt sales of the car in Latin America. Apparently, that's an urban legend.
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