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Microsoft stamps out more 'Windows Live' references

The "Windows Live" branding purge continues. Microsoft Windows Live team has been renamed the Windows Services team, sources say.
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor

Microsoft is continuing to eliminate references to its confusing-from-the-start "Windows Live" branding.

stampingoutwinlive

The latest move: Microsoft has renamed the team formerly known as "Windows Live" to the "Windows Services" team, according to my contacts. The division of which Steven Sinofsky is President is now going to be called the Windows Division, rather than the Windows and Windows Live Division, my contacts added. (Microsoft has not updated Sinofsky's bio page on its Web site to reflect the expected change.)

As part of the latest organizational change, the remaining apps that had been, until recently, known as "Windows Live Essentials" -- Mail, Calendar, Writer, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Family Safety, etc. -- are moving to a newly created Windows Apps team, one of my sources said.

Microsoft officials declined to comment on the "Windows Live" to "Windows Services"-related naming changes. Officials also declined to comment on the alleged formation of a new "Windows Apps" team.

Microsoft has been slowly but surely doing away with "Windows Live" references in the past year-plus. Hotmail hasn't been called "Windows Live Hotmail" for ages.  Hotmail's successor, Outlook.com, wasn't launched as a Windows Live service at all. SkyDrive, its cloud storage service, is no longer known as Windows Live SkyDrive. Windows Live Essentials is now just plain old "Windows Essentials." And the Windows Live ID authentication service is known these days as "Microsoft Account."

"Live" isn't totally dead, however. Xbox Live seems to be doing just fine with the "Live" branding.

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