Pretty meaningless title don’t you think? You may remember that when .NET was launched, Microsoft started attaching the .NET moniker to all of it’s product names. After a while, no one knew what the heck .NET was (fortunately today it only refers to the programming environment). I agree with Microsoft Watch’s Mary Jo Folely, they’re going to do it again with Windows Live:
With over 30 services potentially taking on the “Live” moniker, industry watchers are warning that the Redmond company risks diluting the brand like it did with the .NET concept.
“Within a matter of months [after .NET’s initial release], Microsoft marketers began attaching the .Net moniker to all kinds of products, from Windows .Net Servers, to MapPoint.Net,” said Mary Jo Foley, author of the Microsoft Watch newsletter. “.Net became a meaningless term that even Redmond’s own couldn’t explain concisely.”
Looks like we’re well on our way with Windows Live. The latest service to get the name is Passport:
Microsoft plans to roll its Passport authentication service into the Windows Live family of Web services by 2007, renaming it to Windows Live ID, BetaNews has learned. While the company is keeping mum on specifics, the service will make use of Microsoft’s new InfoCard technology.
I don’t see why they felt the need to rename Passport. I think they had pretty strong brand recognition with the name, and everyone knows it is used mostly for Microsoft sites and services.
Joe Wilcox has a related post up at Microsoft Monitor where he talks about Microsoft’s marketing strategy with the Origami project. I guess we can be thankful it’s not called Origami Live!
Read: Beta News
MasterMaq's Blog 
MS would do well to keep Passport far away from InfoCard otherwise it will risk losing all the positive support it has gained about InfoCard in terms of openness, federation and 3rd-party ecosystem opportunities.
Yeah that’s another reason not to make this change!