alt Hacker NewsI laud the attempt and I think it's important there are more projects that try to compete with their American counterparts. I do want to gently note that if your entire pitch is "we are a bold, independent European alternative that liberates you from the hegemony of the established American players," maybe don't name your product the exact same thing as the product you're replacing? "Office." They named it "Office."
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For me, the charitable interpretation is that office is very close to a default term for the category of the software. Open Office, Libre Office, WPS Office, Only Office, Polaris Office.
One thing that may contribute to Europe's and the world's independence from Office is the notion that it's no longer a term distinctly associated with a Microsoft product.
I don't entirely disagree though because they could have attached some distinguishing prefix or suffix. Maybe that's what the .eu is.
To be fair, Microsoft Office doesn't exist anymore as a separate brand:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-offi...
"Office is now Microsoft 365, the premier productivity suite with innovative productivity apps, intelligent cloud services, and world-class security. Office.com, the Office mobile app, and the Office app for Windows are combined in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app—with a new icon, new look, and even more features."
You can count on Microsoft to mess up their marketing message in the craziest ways. Why stick with the best-known productivity software brand on the planet when you can call it "365 Copilot"?
Focusing on the word "Office" feels like a bit of red herring considering it's frequently used in other Microsoft Office replacements like LibreOffice or OpenOffice.
Something like "EuropaOffice" would have followed the historical pattern so it's specifically the lack of an additional qualifier word that's perhaps questionable, not the word "Office."
But it does look like it's always called "Office.EU" in branding so maybe that's enough?
It also possibly sets a false expectation of perfect compatibility… you can imagine bureaucrats trying to figure out if a file needs to be opened in Office or Office (new)
To be fair, one interpretation is spending innovation tokens wisely. Just piggy back off an already understood concept/brand, don't try to be too clever on the parts where innovating won't matter that much.
There's a bit of an issue with the overload of 'office' in the political context, this being an EU initiative and domain but other than that I say good call.
What I get out of that pitch is "use us because we're local to you, and possibly because you're required to, not because we're and good, or that we'll even try".
I mostly interact with smaller contributors to their field, and they tend to be unique and bold, because that's what is needed to be competitive. When they get their uniqueness and boldness out of just being who they are, it doesn't tend to foster the type of uniqueness and boldness needed to make a good product.
The product they're replacing is called Microsoft Copilot 365 :)
More seriously, Office is a great word for what the software package does, and it can't be trademarked. You can have Microsoft Office, Libre Office, and Europa Office.
I thought of it branded not Office generically but “Office.eu” but maybe I am wrong ?
In fairness, Office is as generic a term as one can come up with for such a software suite. On top of that, I wouldn't be surprised if that fell under Genericide like Lego or Google and, lest we forget, the Microsoft Office brand does not exist anymore, it is 365 and Copilot now...
That word is not as loaded as you might think it is anymore. At least not with the next generation of users.
With your average 18-24 year old swimming in Google Docs, Notion, Monday, Airtable and a dozen others..."Office" will belong to the EU in no time.
Yeah, someone could confuse it with WordPerfect Office, Ability Office, Libre Office, WPS Office, or some other obscure software that uses the word "Office" in it's name.
I mean, at least the gloves come off, who’s going to come after them for using the name? Microsoft? EU will just invalidate their patents. Done. Bye.
> maybe don't name your product the exact same thing as the product you're replacing? "Office." They named it "Office."
Surely you mean "Microsoft 365 Copilot"?
(I am not making this up. That is what it is called now.)
Realistically, though, I think pretty much _all_ office suites have been called [Something] Office, for about the last 30 years. The Google one ("Google Workplace", formerly "Google Apps") is the only exception I can think of, and I wouldn't necessarily take Google's lead in software branding (honestly, until I looked it up for this post, I thought it was still called Google Apps, and I use the damn thing every day).