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Once a brand becomes well-known, it effectively advertises itself, and that's a wonderful thing.

Take Google for example...

Once upon a time, Google was just another search engine and "the" place to do your searches was still AltaVista or Yahoo. Jump forward less than a decade however, and you find that people no longer search for stuff on the Net -- the "Google" for it.

Yes, thanks to its extraordinary success, Google's name has become ubiquitous and is no longer just a noun but a verb as well.

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Even hardware makers realise the importance of creating and growing new brands, take Intel for example.

Ever since the IBM PC first surfaced we've known about the Intel x86 family of processor chips. There was the 8086, 80186, 80286, 80386 etc. Obviously these numeric names weren't exactly catchy or funky and Intel realised this so, in the mid 1990s, they decided to rebrand and introduce the Pentium.

But no discussion of brandnames could be complete without mention of the world's most ubiquitous or widely recognised computer software brand: Microsoft's Windows.

We've had plain old "Windows", Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and most recently Windows XP.

But now we're on the eve of a whole new Windows brand: Windows Vista -- or are we?

Why oh why did Microsoft choose Vista as their brandname for this new version?

Surely a quick search of the trademarks database would have made them aware that "Vista" or names containing the word are everywhere and used for all sorts of things. Hell, I've already mentioned AltaVista in this column today and, as long-term readers will know, even that brand had huge problems with securing the rights to its name.

So, not surprisingly, the cries of "foul" have already started coming out from other users of the Vista name since Microsoft made its announcement and it looks as if the Redmond lawyers are going to be kept very busy earning their BMWs an shark-food for the foreseeable future.

And, as if to show the absolute lunacy of using Vista as a name, I see a story on today's wires (links below) which reference a Linux implementation sold under then brand "MontaVista". I bet sparks will fly over that one too!

Was Microsoft just stupid to pick such a widely-used name and have they underestimated the cost of fighting all these claims against them -- or do they figure that they're now just so big that nobody would dare challenge them?

It's not as if there aren't a long list of other names that Microsoft could have used for its new version. Here are just a few I came up with after only a couple of minutes pondering: "Windows Pane" (in the bum). "Windows Cracked" (again), "Windows Ajar" (or for $500 extra "Windows Secure").

However, I understand that the Linux community are also working on a new version of their favourite operating system which they say is so damned good that they're calling it "Curtains for Windows".

Has Microsoft goofed? Could they have come up with a better name? Can YOU come up with a better name?

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