Office 365 user: Renaming "Office" to "Microsoft 365" is perhaps the worst renaming mistake in Microsoft history

Even though there have been almost 7 years since Microsoft introduced its Microsoft 365 productivity suite, and almost 4 years, since the Redmond-based tech giant renamed Office 365 to Microsoft 365, a lot of users agree that Microsoft made one of the worst mistakes ever by deciding to rename it.

If you wanted to write a document, or work on a spreadsheet, or most common day to day things you do in an OFFICE (home or corpo), what would be an ideal trademark for such Office Software? IDK, “Office?” But there’s no way you could trademark such a ubiquitous term..

Oh wait.. it already is.

Microsoft 365 is a cloud service for personal use. No, it’s also a business office package. It’s also … They are going to rename everything that isn’t Azure “Microsoft 365” so they can make it subscription-only.

Office was just a few years ago the main thing keeping me from switching to Linux… but now I open Word and it’s a friggin clown-show of poor UX, wasted space while hiding useful functions behind more and more clicks… because having just one button always makes an interface easier to use, right???

They have been removing much of the native interoperability as well as the ability to customize the UI… and replacing it with a half-assed javascript API.

Probably what pisses me off the most is that I’ve been paying $500/yr for the stupid action pack, and the latest version of office available is 2016. Even on MSDN!

Microsoft is, like most big tech companies, making record profits… yet they continue to try to squeeze more and more out of regular people. The pandemic taught businesses that they can treat customers like shit and they will still pay.

This might be worse that the renaming dumpster-fire of confusion that is USB-3…

Reddit user

As you can see, one of the main frustrations is the fact that nobody knows what Microsoft 365 stands for, as it creates confusion among users: it is a cloud service for personal use, but also professional use, with Office still being around.

Truth is, the Redmond-based tech giant is somehow uninspired when it comes to renaming or evaluating its products on the market.

For instance, after the company introduced Microsoft 365 in 2017, it sought to use the new name to replace the existing Office 365 and even wanted to rebrand the Office Suite to Microsoft 365, in January 2023.

However, after numerous complaints from users, the Redmond-based tech giant backtracked its decision, and announced to the world, last year, that Microsoft Office 2024 is coming.

There is still confusion, so here is a breakdown: the Microsoft 365 suite is a monthly subscription-based cloud service for personal and professional use that gives users access to Office apps, such as Word, PowerPoint, and so on, plus access to an array of other services, such as Copilot. Since it’s a cloud service, it also comes with cloud storage, which subscribers can use to store their data in the cloud.

The upcoming Microsoft Office 2024, for instance, will be a one-time purchase, and it will give users access to the Office suite, which includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and so on. Users won’t have to pay monthly subscriptions, apps are not going to be updated so often, and cloud-based services such as Copilot, are not available.

Either way, with so many titles around, it’s important to note that: Office 365 is Microsoft 365, but it’s not the same as the Microsoft Office suite.

The Redmond-based tech giant has a history: despite mentioning its Bing Chat AI tool everywhere last year, the company decided to rebrand it to Copilot, confusing everyone once again. Windows Store was renamed to Microsoft Store, and while this makes sense, it was still confusing for users back then.

And then there is Entra:

Oh boy. Guys, should we tell him about EntraID?

Reddit user

Microsoft decided to rename Azure Active Directories (Azure AD) to Entra ID, and obviously and for good reasons, users weren’t happy.

One user stated back then that the Redmond-based tech giant was actually hurting the Azure brand:

In MS’ defense, it is hard to name products when you have a stack as large as theirs. But sometimes, I just don’t get it. Azure AD as an extension of AD–a name that’s been around for 20+ years and a brand that is deeply respected–is just good marketing. I don’t understand this Entra BS. You’re sacrificing lineage with one of the most respected brands in this whole space. EVERYONE knows what AD stands for on this subreddit. Why give that up?

Nonetheless, the Redmond-based tech giant took the decision, renamed multiple Azure services, and never looked back. But it seems, the users still do. They look back. And they’re not happy.

What do you think about it?