AI Weekly Malaysia

Microsoft MVP Loryan Strant created The Microsoft Rebrand Registry, a site listing 72 Microsoft products and the 158 names they've collectively held over the years. The site notes that Microsoft product names survive an average of 2 years and 11 months, identifies 8 products that have undergone three name changes (including Azure AI Search, Azure DevOps, and Microsoft Defender for Endpoint), and even predicts which products are likely to be renamed next based on naming frequency patterns.

Why: If your team builds on Azure or Microsoft 365, bookmark this site to resolve the constant confusion between old and new product names in docs, tickets, and conversations—especially since 8 products have already cycled through three names, meaning your existing documentation and infrastructure-as-code references are probably already stale.

IKEA names 2,000-3,000 new products each year using a strict categorization system: sofas get Swedish place names, bookshelves get men's names, children's products get animals and nature words. Names must be real Swedish words of 4-12 letters, preferably containing Å, Ä, or Ö, and must not be trademarked, be a surname, or carry undesirable meanings in other languages.

Why: There is no practical takeaway here for builders, developers, or founders. The only marginally useful idea is that a structured, rule-based naming taxonomy can scale to thousands of items without collisions — but the article does not go deep enough on the system mechanics to be actionable.