Microsoft Office renamed to “Microsoft 365 Copilot app” • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Office renamed to “Microsoft 365 Copilot app”

#41

Post by b112 » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 12:23 PM UTC

barney54 wrote: post #35

Wow this is dumb. The reason I’m on Windows is because of Office. For my needs Office on Windows is the best—otherwise I’d be on a Mac or Linux. I use AI everyday and never found a use case for Copilot. So why rebrand Office, their best product after Copilot, their worst product?

Didn't they put Office in the cloud? If so, why is Windows needed?

You could run anything plus Office.

Re: Microsoft Office renamed to “Microsoft 365 Copilot app”

#42

Post by nhinck3 » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 12:24 PM UTC

Does anyone have the video of Satya waffling on about agents following you around as he fumbles to explain the value of copilot?

Re: Microsoft Office renamed to “Microsoft 365 Copilot app”

#43

Post by hagbard_c » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 12:24 PM UTC

BomberFish wrote: post #7

"The Microsoft 365 Copilot app (formerly Office)" has got to be the worst rebrand ever. This is gonna be up there with Twitter's rebrand as a case study 20 years down the line.

[flagged]

Re: Microsoft Office renamed to “Microsoft 365 Copilot app”

#44

Post by adastra22 » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 12:25 PM UTC

falcor84 wrote: post #14

BomberFish wrote: post #7

"The Microsoft 365 Copilot app (formerly Office)" has got to be the worst rebrand ever. This is gonna be up there with Twitter's rebrand as a case study 20 years down the line.

I still put "Max" as the second worst (after "X").

Which max?

Re: Microsoft Office renamed to “Microsoft 365 Copilot app”

#45

Post by expedition32 » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 12:25 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #17

This is getting bizarre, worse than Balmer's Microsoft.

Artificial Intelligence! Artificial Intelligence! Artificial Intelligence!

Ah the 90s were great.

Re: Microsoft Office renamed to “Microsoft 365 Copilot app”

#46

Post by adastra22 » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 12:26 PM UTC

lowlevel wrote: post #13

Maybe just so they can count office usage as Copilot usage.

They already do, as if you go to office.com you get redirected to copilot and have to hunt for the unintuitive link in the sidebar to actually find Office.

Re: Microsoft Office renamed to “Microsoft 365 Copilot app”

#47

Post by HugoTea » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 12:27 PM UTC

nelox wrote: post #27

1975: Traf-O-Data renamed Microsoft. Traffic counting ditched. Visionary. 1985: MS-DOS released. Users typed everything. Peak convenience. 1995: Windows 95 launched. Clippy forced assistance. Users thrilled. 2012: Metro interface rolled out. Tiles everywhere. Intuitive design. 2014: Windows Azure renamed Microsoft Azure. “Windows” dropped. Bold move. 2020: Office 365 renamed Microsoft 365. Bing renamed Microsoft Bing…

2011: Microsoft buys Skype for $8.5 billion, rebrands Lync to Skype for Business, an incredible branding manoeuvre.

2012: Skype peer-to-peer nature and end-to-end encryption removed.

2017: Microsoft launches Teams, competes with own product after driving Skype into the ground for 6 years with encroaching advertising, removing features, and abandonment.

2025: Skype shut-down.

What was the point? When MS bought Skype, they already held a majority market share in the IM market with MSN, which they also shut-down. Between 2011 and 2025 they lost almost all market share for domestic users to WhatsApp and Discord. This series of events baffles me to no end.

Re: Microsoft Office renamed to “Microsoft 365 Copilot app”

#48

Post by smallvariance » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 12:30 PM UTC

Microsoft Office was a very strong brand, with decades of brand recognition and an enormous amount of value. This feels very much like throwing out the baby with the bathwater here ... while I can see the reasons for doing it, it very much seems like they're losing a lot from this name change.

Re: Microsoft Office renamed to “Microsoft 365 Copilot app”

#49

Post by mapt » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 12:30 PM UTC

Marketing got high off AI delusions again.

Re: Microsoft Office renamed to “Microsoft 365 Copilot app”

#50

Post by bluehex » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 12:31 PM UTC

Such confusing naming they can't even keep it straight in the announcement.

"The Microsoft 365 Copilot app" in the introductory paragraph. Then there's a button "Buy Microsoft 365" The link below is as "Download Microsoft 365 apps for MacOS"

And the file you get is: Microsoft_365_and_Office_16~Installer.pkg

So is it the "Microsoft 365 Copilot app", or is it just "Microsoft 365" or multiple "Microsoft 365 apps"?

Above it says "formerly Office" and then the installer is named with "and Office". It's a jumble of inconsistency in just the first few lines on this landing page.