I pity the marketers working the Microsoft account. There’s no way to win. If they go vague, they get people_ready. If they go edgy, they get panic and push bac

I pity the marketers working the Microsoft account. There’s no way to win. If they go vague, they get people_ready. If they go edgy, they get panic and push back. Talk about a set of golden handcuffs. Pity indeed. They're in a tough spot because MS has too many irons in their brand fire. The same company that sells Halo and Zunes sells BizTalk server. They could probably fix this by breaking the corporate branding into several virtual companies; they could be sliced over 9000 different ways but at least getting the consumer entertainment and devices out into an "edgy" brand would alleviate the pain substantially. I suspect that this is kind of what they're trying to do with the prefix naming they've done so much of over the last 3-5 years. I think "Microsoft Windows Live Hotmail" is an attempt to put a marque around them without making them look like they are separate companies for antitrust purposes.