Microsoft Office Is Now 'Microsoft 365 Copilot App' (pcgamer.com) 99
Longtime reader joshuark shares a report: As spotted by Bluesky user DodgerFanLA, going to Office.com now greets you with the following helpful explainer: "The Microsoft 365 Copilot app (formerly Office) lets you create, share, and collaborate all in one place with your favorite apps now including Copilot.*"
Never has an asterisk been more relevant to me than following the words "your favorite apps now including Copilot."
About a decade ago, hardware company Corsair attempted to pivot from its classic logo -- a subtle trio of ship sails -- to a newer, edgier look, a pair of crossed swords that gave off regrettable '2000s tribal tattoo' energy. The rebrand didn't last long: after a fierce outcry from people who correctly thought the new logo sucked, Corsair swapped to a refreshed take on the sail logo, which it's been using ever since. Corsair was established in 1994, and made about $1.4 billion last year -- which I bring up because today Microsoft, a slightly bigger company, has slipped on its own rebranding banana peel. The company is seemingly all but ditching the Office name -- which it introduced four years before Corsair existed, and which drove more than $30 billion in revenue just last quarter -- with a catchy new name: "Microsoft 365 Copilot app."
The company had already downplayed the Office name, despite it being perhaps the most universally recognized software in existence, by renaming its cloud version of Word, Powerpoint, etc. Office 365 in 2010, then Microsoft 365 in 2017. Now when you want to open up a Word document, you can get to them by launching the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. Intuitive!
Should Microsoft just go ahead and rebrand Windows, the only piece of its arsenal more famous than Office, as Copilot, too? I do actually think we're not far off from that happening. Facebook rebranded itself "Meta" when it thought the metaverse would be the next big thing, so it seems just as plausible that Microsoft could name the next version of Windows something like "Windows with Copilot" or just "Windows AI."
Copilot is the app for launching the other apps, but it's also a chatbot inside the apps. Any questions? Correction: Office hasn't been renamed to "Microsoft 365 Copilot app." The Verge adds: The confusion comes from Microsoft's own Office.com domain, which for the past year has acted as a way to push businesses and consumers to use the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. This app is a hub app that provides access to Copilot, as well as all the Office apps. Microsoft used to call this app simply Office, before the company rebranded Office to Microsoft 365 in 2022.
If you visit Office.com you'll see a big welcome to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, and a note from Microsoft that would confuse anyone not following the company's confusing branding: "The Microsoft 365 Copilot app (formerly Office)..." That mention of "formerly Office" is Microsoft referring to the very old Office app that launched in 2019 as a way to try and convince people to use online versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Until a year ago it used to be called the Microsoft 365 app. Microsoft then announced it was rebranding its Microsoft 365 app in November 2024 to a Copilot one, which I and everyone else were very confused at. The new app icon and name -- Microsoft 365 Copilot -- then rolled out on January 15th last year to Windows, iOS, and Android users.
Never has an asterisk been more relevant to me than following the words "your favorite apps now including Copilot."
About a decade ago, hardware company Corsair attempted to pivot from its classic logo -- a subtle trio of ship sails -- to a newer, edgier look, a pair of crossed swords that gave off regrettable '2000s tribal tattoo' energy. The rebrand didn't last long: after a fierce outcry from people who correctly thought the new logo sucked, Corsair swapped to a refreshed take on the sail logo, which it's been using ever since. Corsair was established in 1994, and made about $1.4 billion last year -- which I bring up because today Microsoft, a slightly bigger company, has slipped on its own rebranding banana peel. The company is seemingly all but ditching the Office name -- which it introduced four years before Corsair existed, and which drove more than $30 billion in revenue just last quarter -- with a catchy new name: "Microsoft 365 Copilot app."
The company had already downplayed the Office name, despite it being perhaps the most universally recognized software in existence, by renaming its cloud version of Word, Powerpoint, etc. Office 365 in 2010, then Microsoft 365 in 2017. Now when you want to open up a Word document, you can get to them by launching the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. Intuitive!
Should Microsoft just go ahead and rebrand Windows, the only piece of its arsenal more famous than Office, as Copilot, too? I do actually think we're not far off from that happening. Facebook rebranded itself "Meta" when it thought the metaverse would be the next big thing, so it seems just as plausible that Microsoft could name the next version of Windows something like "Windows with Copilot" or just "Windows AI."
Copilot is the app for launching the other apps, but it's also a chatbot inside the apps. Any questions? Correction: Office hasn't been renamed to "Microsoft 365 Copilot app." The Verge adds: The confusion comes from Microsoft's own Office.com domain, which for the past year has acted as a way to push businesses and consumers to use the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. This app is a hub app that provides access to Copilot, as well as all the Office apps. Microsoft used to call this app simply Office, before the company rebranded Office to Microsoft 365 in 2022.
If you visit Office.com you'll see a big welcome to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app, and a note from Microsoft that would confuse anyone not following the company's confusing branding: "The Microsoft 365 Copilot app (formerly Office)..." That mention of "formerly Office" is Microsoft referring to the very old Office app that launched in 2019 as a way to try and convince people to use online versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Until a year ago it used to be called the Microsoft 365 app. Microsoft then announced it was rebranding its Microsoft 365 app in November 2024 to a Copilot one, which I and everyone else were very confused at. The new app icon and name -- Microsoft 365 Copilot -- then rolled out on January 15th last year to Windows, iOS, and Android users.
Don't forget (Score:5, Funny)
The people that came up with this idea make more money than 99% of other humans and will retire millionaires from stock options.
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Just got off a contract at Microsoft. Most of the rank and file workers there are just sad old men, but no means richer than 99% of other humans. In fact, they were lowballing me on my hourly rate, and that's why I quit.
You believe "rank and file workers" are the ones who choose branding strategy for a trillion dollar company?
VPs and Senior Marketing consultants get together at a $3,000 per person Visioning Retreat weekend and come up with these things.
Re: Don't forget (Score:2)
My neighbor runs those kind of executive team retreats. You should add a zero to what they cost.
What's in a Name. (Score:3)
The people that came up with this idea make more money than 99% of other humans and will retire millionaires from stock options.
I really doubt the group of GTE consultants that came up with "Verizon" are rolling in endless money.
Not every marketing exercise, results in stock option fueled retirements. Especially ones as short-sighted as this. Five bucks says they change the name back by the end of the fiscal quarter. Because the corporate Office changes Office suites about as often as they choose to use an OS other than Windows.
On the other hand, what's in a name if "Take a note" becomes the customized voice trigger for the defau
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Verizon's rename was 26 years ago and yes, I bet their marketing team while not millionaires were well compensated. Also that was a merger based change, different animal really so IMO not a great comparison. Dell's recent change here is more applicable I would say, this is marketing for more market share.
Five bucks says they change the name back by the end of the fiscal quarter.
I agree but that's irrelevant to my point.
Fact is this idea passed from marketing to the approval of the VP and C class and all those people are doing quite well and patting eachother on the backs right n
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The symbol was selected because it uses the two letters of the Verizon logo that graphically portray speed, while also echoing the origin of the company name: veritas, the Latin word connoting certainty and reliability, and horizon, signifying forward-looking and visionary.
The punch line on the street for many years follwing the rename was GTE spent around $50K via consultants to sit around and ultimately come up with a play on veritas, which at the time was considered an obscene amount of money to piss away on a rename.
Today, $50K wouldn't even pay for a pass to a Diddy pre-party to start lubing the consultants brains up.
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xzibit (Score:5, Funny)
This is fantastic! (Score:5, Interesting)
As a long term Linux user I am delighted by this move on the part of Microsoft.
I suspect that at some point, even the most die-hard Windows user will tire of AI being shoved down their throat and decide to try out this "Linux thing" they've heard so much about. Given that so many Linux distros are now as easy to use as Windows (or even easier -- to the extent that my 71 year old wife uses Linux now), this will only boost the market share of the Penguin.
The other benefit is that the more people we have using Linux, the less ability big-tech will have to shift us to "hardware as a service" due to the massive costs of high-performance desktop computing systems now. NVIDIA's GeForce NOW is the perfect example of how we're increasingly being pushed to simply rent hardware rather than buy it. Today GPUs, tomorrow - entire systems because nobody can afford DRAM or a GPU that's up to the task.
I've got Linux running very happily on 3rd and 4th gen Intel i5 processors here with as little as 4GB of RAM and even my most powerful system is just an AMD 5600G with 32GB that serves perfectly well for everything but video editing.
Just keep drilling holes in the bottom of your boat Microsoft, we don't care.
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This disproportionately impacts Linux users, actually. It's not *huge*, but in Windows, I think the experience for now is largely the same, you open up the desktop app of your choice, regardless of stupid name, browse the files through explorer even if in onedrive.
For Linux users that need to use Office apps, you use the web versions, which are generally adequate for most tasks. Now instead of getting a document oriented view to work with your files and files shared with you, you get, by default a big old c
Re:This is fantastic! (Score:5, Insightful)
"For Linux users that need to use Office apps, you use the web versions"
Alternatively don't bother using that crap and use LibreOffice instead.
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Yeah, I'd like to, except:
- Impress tends to totally flub the presentations I work on
- For some reason, Calc is tortuously slow at simple things like scrolling some of the data I have, and it's not even a lot of data, and nothing so much as formulas to explain why it would be slow
- Writer flubs document formatting, though not as severely as Impress
For Impress and Writer issues, it's probably fine in and of themselves if everyone else used it instead of Microsoft software since it's more disagreement on form
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I'd be amazed if javascript running in a browser constantly sending data back and forth down the pipe is faster than a native program but stranger things have happened.
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This feel like a very common MS-aligned view. The, "non-MS office software flubs things," take, which winds up being, "... it's probably fine if you're not forced to share files with MS 365 Copilot App users". The slant there is obvious. You easily could have worded that as:
- PowerPoint tends to totally flub presentations created in anything other than the same version of PowerPoint
- Word flubs document formatting for any documents from other sources
Another example is how Excel for Mac handled dates differe
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Well, I did say exactly that in my conclusion, that it's not that LibreOffice writer/impress are incapable, just different and realistically I *have* to work with people who know only Microsoft Office stuff.
If I was in an org that was LibreOffice-centric, that would be fantastic and I wouldn't use Office. However the practical fact is that when I deal with my own company and 99% of customers, they want to speak in Microsoft products. On the wild occasion that someone sends me an odp file, I'll gleefully f
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Then please stop writing BS like, "Impress tends to totally flub the presentations I work on."
YOUR practical reality may be that you have to put up with a product (MS Office) that has very fragile and undocumented document parsing, but that fragility is clearly not the fault of any similar products (ex. LibreOffice, which often handles older MS formats better than MS's current version).
It may not be reasonably fair that LibreOffice is stuck trying to be compatible without cooperation from Microsoft, but it is the practical reality.
If you can acknowledge that, as well as the fact that LibreOffice is open source and its native format is well documented,
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I've done quite of work on Calc, and never had much of a problem. It's not a one-to-one match with Excel, but I've had few issues. I don't really use Powerpoint or Impress, save to view presentations, and haven't seen any significant issues.
I have used Writer *a lot* (I've written a novel and several proposals and projects). Once I got it used to it, I actually prefer the way I can work styles in Writer to Word, and every time I'm forced back into using Word, I find it just a huge pain in the ass. In genera
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Note I'm running it under Fedora, not Windows.
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Re:This is fantastic! (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux isn’t the problem. Getting someone to make a professional CAD software is the problem. KiCad is good enough to compete with Altium now but there isn’t anything capable of replacing SolidWorks.
Linux might be part of the problem (Score:2)
The whole reinventing the wheel (badly) nonsense with Wayland probably isn't helping bring companies who have highly complicated graphicals app to the table when they may (or may not) have to engineer them for 2 entirely different graphical systems. Yes, apparently Wayland has X compat mode though from what I've read some aspects are about as compatible as square peg -> round hole.
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Re: Linux might be part of the problem (Score:2)
Wayland won on what planet exactly? The jury is most definitely still out.
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FreeCAD now can do most of what SolidWorks can. That is, if you can choose the application.
Some can also run SolidWorks in Linux, as I have heard: https://github.com/cryinkfly/S... [github.com]
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You think MSFT is still popular because it has the best CAD software?
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This. I think most of Slashdotters are too much stuck in their echo chamber that they don't seem to understand that most users just don't give a shit, and use whatever OS comes on their machine.
Including me. I could install Linux on my laptop, I have no application that require Windows on it, but I just couldn't be fucked. My laptop Windows 11 works just fine. My desktop (Arch linux) works just fine since I don't play games online and therefore aren't limited with anitcheat software.
People just don't fuckin
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I love to see increased Linux adoption as much as the next Slashdotter, but this article is about MS 365 cloud applications, not an operating system. And unfortunately, this change will affect users regardless of what OS they're using.
The year of the Linux desktop has been heralded for nearly 30 years on this site every time Microsoft makes a stupid decision, but not even this is going to drive significant numbers away from Windows.
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thats because linux users and developers rarely give a shit about what windows users actually want and would rather just preach at them
You think Microsoft is giving users what they actually want?
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thats because linux users and developers rarely give a shit about what windows users actually want and would rather just preach at them
This is because Linux users and developers DO give a shit about what LINUX users actually want, as they damned well should.
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AI obsessions across platforms (Score:2)
Except that Linux is headed down this same path. That's what the Linux Foundation is on record as saying: that 95% of their future is in AI. Only platform that is relatively AI free are the BSDs. Also, due to the fiascos w/ Apple Intelligence and Siri, Apple too is a bit less pushy about AI
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the Linux Foundation is on record as saying: that 95% of their future is in AI.
advocating for open standards and interoperability in the AI ecosystem is nowhere near the same thing as baking it into the OS and forcing it down everyone's throat.
Only platform that is relatively AI free are the BSDs.
lol what the hell are you smoking dude
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I wish I could say "I never use Microsoft Office for anything, it's all just LibreOffice!"
But, unfortunately, I have a job. My employer (like nearly all employers) requires the use of "Microsoft 365 Copilot App".
I found a few job listings that are Linux-focused....they paid significantly less than what I am making.
So, I guess, I have been bribed into using this garbage. That's the bottom line then: I hate Microsoft products so much they literally have to pay me to use them.
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People have been posting "Linux is better and the masses are starting to see it now" for 20+ years. Yet somehow, MSFT is a $3.5T company.
It's all about the apps (Score:2)
This is going to confuse a lot of people, especially since they even renamed the apps in the app stores to Microsoft 365 Copilot
https://play.google.com/store/... [google.com]
How to get everyone to use copilot: (Score:4, Funny)
Rename everything to copilot.
But will it please the investors who have seen all this money get dumped into AI, to basically have the same revenue streams as last year with a different name?
Even if they fool them it won't last very long. It just screams of desperation. Come on stupid bubble, pop already.
God is my copilot (Score:3)
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Micropilot ?
Listen closely (Score:5, Informative)
That flushing noise you just heard is the sound of decades and billions of dollars of branding swirling down the money commode.
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Billions of $$ isn't a lot when you're worth $3.5T.
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Being estimated at and actually having access to that money are pretty different things.
It do help a lot with getting loans and investment, but you can't actually get that money.
return to office (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me of this old chestnut (Score:2)
Now we all know this is a grammatically correct sentence.
The question is how long until "Colpilot copilot Copilot copilot copilot copilot Copilot copoliot" will take to become a complete grammatically correct sentence. I don't think we are that far away now.
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I've never understood why it's only eight Buffalos, when eleven would make even more sense:
Buffalo buffalo, Buffalo buffalo buffallo, buffalo Buffalo buffalo, Buffalo buffalo buffalo.
As in "New York bison, [other] New York bison bully, bully New York bison, [that other] New York bison [also] bully."
Sounds like a horror movie sequel (Score:2)
Re: Sounds like a horror movie sequel (Score:4, Interesting)
Clippy would never . . .
Say what you like about Clippy but Clippy would never have let this happen.
Clippy would be some sort of Anti-hero in the movie, dragging himself out of the trashbin saying "it looks like you're trying to disable Copilot" and all the characters think he's going to side with the LLM and then he says "I fight for the users" and uncoils into a straight line so he can hit a pinhole reset button and then Copilot MCP gets hard reset.
Everyone cheers, and the credits start to roll, and the camera pulls back through the roof of the data centre, and you see 6 or seven other data centres, each with a different company logo; and you realise we're not getting rid of the slop.
Even if half the companies collapse this is where its all going.
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Clippy got resurrected and revamped aswell.
It will be now known as Sloppy.
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Patient: Doctor, Doctor, I'm having trouble going poopers. Please help me.
Doctor: Well, let's have look.
(Doctor pulls out an evil looking device with a camera on the end and shoves it in.)
Doctor: Holy Shit!! What is that?!?
Patient: Oh Doctor, please pull it out!!
Doctor: I need to know what it is before I can extract it.
Doctor refits his device with a grabber and shoves it in. He gently pulls a bit. Through the office intercom comes a metallic voice.
Voice: Doctor, please desist in your efforts. I am not goin
Microsoft Shitpile (Score:3)
In a decade, when they've decided that Microsoft ActivePilot 365 Live Pro Gold fails to accurately convey the functionality of their state of the art robot that only needs 12kW seconds to accurately add two numbers, Shitpile will still be the most accurate description.
Accounting tricks (Score:2)
I think Microsoft promised investors they'd make an impossible amount of money with copilot and have realized that the only way they can follow through is to rename their entire offering.
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Microsoft and naming... (Score:3)
Remember Skype? No, not Skype Enterprise, that's Lync I mean the other Skype, you know the old MSN Messenger, now Teams.
Now we have Copilot, but that's not GitHub Copilot, it is more like Cortana except it is Office, or maybe 365, well, the thing Teams is now part of.
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I want Clippy back!
You thought Ballmer was bad... (Score:2)
Nadella is really killing it. Literally.
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Nothing even works as a copilot (Score:1)
I think "Copilot" is a brand that fits Microsoft (Score:2)
No pilot in command at Microsoft, just copilots.
Office,...Microsoft,....Copilot,....whatever (Score:2)
I bought Office - Home & Student 2021 edition some years ago. Was not going to switch to a subscription model, and I don't need the latest features, even if AI weren't in the picture. In fact, the move from .doc, .xls, .ppt to .docx, .xlsx, .pptx in Office 1997 itself was pretty disruptive to me. Will just stick to what I have - a license that I bought at Costco and is now recognized in the Microsoft Account
So they can brand this whatever they like - I don't care. Only thing I use AI for is during
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I just saw the clarification, but it changes nothing. I still refuse to use the online version of this suite. I legitimately bought a $149 suite I mentioned above, so Microsoft dare not ever try to delete that from my account (aside, maybe, from making it unrunnable in future versions of Windows)
The last thing I want is a cloud based suite "autocorrecting" my sentences to whatever Microsoft believes I ought to say
Found the LUDDITES! (Score:2)
Only LUDDITES use LUDDITE MS Office to create FAKE LUDDITE EXCEL APPS ! Modern app appers only use appy Copilot app to app the appiest and Copilotiest apps!
Apps! Copilot!
A branding fail so bad it makes slashdot (Score:2)
is copilot doing the marketing now?
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Also, formerly Remote Desktop (Score:1)
New path forward leaves technical users behind (Score:1)
Copilot 12 (Score:2)
At my job, the transition from Windows 10 to Windows 11 was bad enough. When Microsoft and the IT department forces the Windows 11 to Copilot 12 transition, that's my cue to retire.
pushing an app that few want (Score:3)
This seems a variation on the tactic of making a new, unpopular thing an integral part of an older popular thing in order to ramp up usage.
What it may do instead is drive people to Libre Office.
I have an actual license for Office 2000, and used it for at least a decade across several computers. Microsoft gets (rare) kudos for keeping Office 2000 up to date with plugins for new file types. But at some point I had to leave it behind, and Libre was a better solution for me than Office 365.
So I suspect after they see Office lose traction for a year or so, they'll rebrand it back to what it was and just not mention Copilot anymore.
Or renew efforts to make Copilot baked into the OS. My understanding is that you can still uninstall it with Windows 11.
Have we decided yet whether Copilot is the new Clippy, or the new Bob?
You guys are totally missing the point (Score:2)
Microsoft heard about Dell admitting their branding mistakes at CES and said "this is a problem... how can we get the attention focused back on US?"
i get office for free and stopped using it (Score:2)
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I use Google Office in my Chromebook. My problem w/ it is that Google Docs or Spread or whatever app insists on opening it in another tab on my browser, rather than as a standalone app. Really irritating
If I get to the point where I can't use my current Office Home & Student 2021, then I'd rather switch to Mac's Pages, Numbers and Keynote. Only thing I have against Apple is them bricking perfectly functional old toys of theirs
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This just in! (Score:2)
Microsoft doesn't want your business.
Mac Man (Score:1)
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