Over the past few weeks, we have heard people calling for everything from taking Microsoft private to splitting up the company, and for the most part those ideas have been shot down. I will admit at one time that I thought that the idea of splitting up the company into three divisions, Consumer, Corporate, and OS, was something to be considered.  I have to say my thinking on that has changed.

the main reason for the change in my thinking was a recent quote of Bill Gates in an Information Week post where he said:

“I agree with what Steve (Microsoft CEO Ballmer) is saying,” said Gates, who was also present at the shareholder meeting. “In that the Microsoft brand, the scale of Microsoft Research on a worldwide basis, the intellectual property we build up, the way we hire and train people, there’s lots of synergy across the company and it’s been a real strength.”

“If you look at the evolution of Office and how it uses the cloud, if you look at the evolution of some of the gaming assets and how those connect to the communications things we’re doing, you know, I don’t think there’s a line where you’d find net simplicity by trying to create a new company,” said Gates.

For me, I think that pretty well settled the question; or at least it did until I read a post by Paul Thurrott, where he was talking about the branding around Windows Phone 7 and said this:

“I know, I know. Microsoft loves the name Windows, and wants to splatter the name of one of its few timeless hits on as many products as possible in the hope that some magic pixie dust will rub off and make those products successful. It didn’t work for Windows Mobile, isn’t working for Windows Live, and won’t work for Windows Phone. Windows Phone has nothing to do with Windows at all–in fact, it’s pretty Windows-antagonistic in that it doesn’t offer any Zune-less PC integration at all–and Microsoft is hobbling this system by drawing attention to the past.”

So this got me to thinking about the subject again, and I wonder if the answer isn’t so much splitting up the company but rather splitting up the brand. As has been pointed out so many times in the past, naming products is not one of Microsoft’s strong suits. But, in some ways it is understandable, when you consider that much of Microsoft’s business in the past has been centered around the corporate IT world, and as such the marketing philosophy has been one of naming things in a technical way.  Just look at the number of products available in the corporate environment and how the branding of those products is such to appeal to a business mentality.

The problem is that this type of branding becomes a butt of jokes when it comes to  a larger consumer oriented marketplace. I am pretty sure most of us remember the video that was a parody of what Microsoft’s marketing of the iPod would be like.

The reason people loved the video was because it hit Microsoft’s marketing philosophy right on the head, and everyone was pretty surprised when the Zune first surfaced, because even with all the criticism it received, it didn’t come with the typical Microsoft or Windows branding.

We have seen a gradual shifting away from the “Windows” and long product names, but that marketing mindset still maintains a hold. Sure, we have Bing but we also have Windows Live. We Xbox 360 and Kinect, but we also have Windows Phone 7.

Where Microsoft seems to get the consumer mindset with the branding around things like the Xbox and even Bing, it then falls flat and retreats back to the same old “Windows” marketing even though the products could — and should — stand on their own.

When the Windows Phone 7 first surfaced, it was stuck with the ridiculous moniker Windows Phone Series 7, but after it was thankfully rescued from that naming horror rather quickly — even if the successor still stinks. The thing is that it already has a great consumer brand opportunity due to the design team behind the smartphone. It’s simple,  and It’s elegant. It should lead to great marketing and branding ideas.

The truth is, it’s a Microsoft Metro phone. Never mind the Windows crap. Never mind the currently hot use of “7″ for everything. Just simply — the Metro smartphone.

While, as Bill Gates pointed out, there is no rhyme or reason for splitting up the company, that doesn’t mean that a case can’t be made for a total separation between the corporate branding and the consumer branding. Consumers don’t care about long technical or business sounding names. They want their toys to be not only cool to use but also just as cool to brag about. After all what really sounds better when talking to your friends — “You just gotta see my new Windows Phone 7″ or instead something like “Oh man you gotta check out my new Metro phone.”

As much as Microsoft might like to think that their products can bridge the consumer and corporate market those marketplaces are two different things and as such so should the branding and marketing for those products.

[Cross-posted at Winextra]