Microsoft to Rename SkyDrive Following Trademark Dispute with BSkyB

So, you’re a massive corporation about to launch a new cloud service called ‘SkyDrive’. You’d like to draw major attention to it by embedding the hell out of it in your latest OS. Meanwhile, you don’t think to check to see if some other company owns the rights to the name. A year passes, and you get that dreaded phone call.

It almost seems hilarious, but that’s how things have played out for Microsoft, leading me to alter the old wordage of wisdom, “The bigger they are, the harder they fail”. I say “fail” because this isn’t the first time that Microsoft has become victim to this exact problem. Almost a year ago to the day, the company announced that it had to get rid of the “Metro” name, instead opting for “Modern UI” or some sort.

How this manages to happen, I’m not quite sure, but the owner of the trademark, BSkyB, was none-too-pleased. As per the legal agreement, Microsoft is allowed to continue using the SkyDrive name for a reasonable amount of time while it chooses another name and changes what it needs to in the marketplace.

What I’m most curious about here is what BSkyB actually had in store for SkyDrive, because as a broadcaster, I’m not sure what would possibly sit in its portfolio where SkyDrive would be a suitable name. Nonetheless, it was claimed first there, and Microsoft is learning a hard lesson yet again.