Cortana Would Be Named Bingo if Steve Ballmer Had His Way

Steve Ballmer wanted Microsoft's Cortana AI to be called "Bingo" so it would be more Microsoft-branded. From a report: That's according to former Microsoft product manager Sandeep Paruchuri, who recounted the story of how Microsoft's AI assistant got its name to writer Alice Newton Rex as part of a deep dive into Cortana's origins. While we've gotten a pretty good idea of Microsoft's ambitious vision for the AI assistant in the years since it leaked then launched, Paruchuri and Rex gave the inside story of how Cortana was named, pitched to management, and the clash that happened between dreams and reality. Also included are interesting details about how the assistant became one of the main advertising points for the doomed Windows Phone platform.

Bingo = Go in Bin

[Circlotron]

Like some Microsoft products.

Re:

[RogueWarrior65]

LOL. I was just thinking that Microsoft hasn't made a product that made it into the lexicon in a long time.

Re:

[arglebargle_xiv]

Bingo!

Shame...

[Kokuyo]

That way EVERYONE would have known from the start that the product would be Clippy-esque :D

Re: Shame...

[ArmoredDragon]

That's all it ever was, just a version of clippy that annoys you when you install windows, and then you never see it again.

Re:

[hawk]

"I see you've gone into the kitchen. Would you like me to buy another of everything in your refrigerator from paid sponsored vendors?"

Bingo?

[EnsilZah]

Bingo the clown-o? [youtube.com]

Re:

[necro81]

No, more like Bingo the monkey [youtube.com].

One time I hired a monkey to take notes for me in class. I would just sit there with my mind a complete blank while the monkey scribbled on little pieces of paper. At the end of the week the teach said "Class, I want you to write a paper using your notes." So I wrote a paper that said "hello, my name is bingo. I like to climb on things. Can I have a banana? Eep eep." I got an F. When I told my mom about it she said "I told you never trust a monkey." The End.

Sounds a lo

Re:

[zerosomething]

I came here to post that ;) another version https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

Lost opportunity!

[Ecuador]

What a lost opportunity... Imagine all the amazing promotion they could have done with the well known B-I-N-G-O song! It would have made a splash!

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[Joce640k]

Never forget:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

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[Ecuador]

How can I forget. Ballmer was so cool [youtube.com].

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[Joce640k]

The jump at 0:30 where he hurts his foot is the best jump.

Re: Lost opportunity!

[Ogive17]

That's more energy than many of the WWE wrestlers put in to their intro. Yikes

Bingo ? I prefer Bluey

[bettersheep]

Or his mum.

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[correct0r]

*Her* mum.

Less ridiculous than Cortana

[JoeyRox]

Cortana sounds like a Mexican city where you can score cheap pain meds.

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[Zontar The Mindless]

For some reason, "Cortana" always made me think of "Rich Corinthian leather". Make of this what you will.

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[Waffle Iron]

Now that name is making me envision a huge 70s land yacht "luxury" coupe, with opera windows and 5-foot long doors that drop a couple of inches when you pull them open.

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[hawk]

Now if Microsoft shipped *that*, I would consider buying one of their products for the first time in 30 years . . . [word 5.1/Excel 4.0]

Of course, I would insist on a big v8 with lousy gas mileage, too . . .

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[dsgrntlxmply]

Cortar: "to cut", -ana place name ending => City of Death by a Thousand Cuts. Whoever decided that Windows install would begin with LOUD VOICE AUDIO needs to be keelhauled.

Cortana is named after a fictional AI

[TheNameOfNick]

It is not an AI.

Clearly my imagination is inadequate.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I had never seriously considered the possibility that 'cortana' could have been worse; but apparently that was a real possibility.

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[mjwx]

I had never seriously considered the possibility that 'cortana' could have been worse; but apparently that was a real possibility.

Something no-one asked for, that no-one wants and is so useless everyone ends up disabling could have been called something even more forgettable. Colour me meh.

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[thegarbz]

Something no-one asked for

The success of digital assistances in all other platforms show that it really was something that many people did in fact ask for.

MS's incompetence is something no one asked for.

To quote the bard

[theshowmecanuck]

A turd by any other name, is still a turd.

It's a Bingo!

[nospam007]

Do you say it that way?

Re:

[spun]

You just say "bingo."

Lost marketing opportunity

[luvirini]

Think of the promotion by all those old ladies yelling bingo when they play bingo..

Re: Lost marketing opportunity

[rantrantrant]

And all the personalised ads you be deluged with for two fat ladies, legs eleven, etc..

Management speak

[kqc7011]

It went from Ballmers simple, easy to remember name to something that a HR committee dreamed up.

Re:

[LKM]

It's named after an AI in Halo, so I doubt an HR committee came up with it. I do agree that the name is pretty terrible, though. Not that Bingo would have been much better - at least neither of the two are human names, so that's a plus for an AI that responds when you say its name.

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[azcoyote]

I don't think Cortana is a bad name. It's a bad product, but the name at least is easy to say and does not sound too much like anything else in English. It doesn't have Alexa's problem of being an actual name that lots of people have. Part of the reason for the name Alexa was so it could pick up the relatively rare X sound for easier recognition, but the other part is that it sounds friendly and approachable. I think the name Cortana is friendly and approachable enough. In contrast, Google's "OK Google" was

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[freeze128]

Knowing Ballmer, he probably also would have liked it to be named "Developers, Developers, Developers!"

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[drinkypoo]

It's a tie-in to their video gaming side. They said hey, we want Windows to appeal to younger people (I'm guessing) and how can we do that? I know, we'll tie Windows to our entertainment division by naming our search tool after a character in the Halo games. She's a computer, this makes sense right? Except nothing about trying to get young people excited about windows makes sense.

Whatever, It does not matter both ways.

[stooo]

It does not matter both ways.

B. I. N. G. O. - and Bingo was his name-o

[bradley13]

Who else remembers this silly kids' song? Am I giving away my age?

Anyway, as a name for a service, it would be pretty laughable.

Ultimately Cortana was a stupid name

[DeplorableCodeMonkey]

Since the canonical Cortana went rogue, took over the entire remaining cybernetic army of the Forerunners and deployed their WMDs across the galaxy "to protect" the organic races.

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[thegarbz]

Since the canonical Cortana went rogue, took over the entire remaining cybernetic army of the Forerunners and deployed their WMDs across the galaxy "to protect" the organic races.

What makes you think that isn't the core programming of MS's digital assistant?

Developers developers developers

[gosso920]

If Ballmer had his way, it would have been called Bingo Bingo Bingo Bingo BiNgO bInGo BINGO

Bob Reborn

[aerogems]

Surprised he didn't want to name it either MS Bob or even Clippy.

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[OrangeTide]

Clippy is coming back. I swear the AI wars will have cute mascots driving our cars into buildings and derailing trains. The future will be the sort of campy comedy-horror that was too unrealistic to take seriously just 20 years ago.

So fitting...

[AcidFnTonic]

So fitting... It's almost a perfect symbolic name for Balmer himself.

Like a big dumb Golden Retriever.

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[ebvwfbw]

Thought he was monkey boy - https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Give it up... for me!

Huh, that would have been better

[bob_jenkins]

Huh! That would have been a better name. More memorable, evokes a dog fetching things for you. Being a wordplay on Bing is annoying, but otherwise I like it. Cortana strikes me as a long featureless name, totally ignorable.

Because ...

[PPH]

... Crapshoot was already taken?

If Cortana is named Bingo

[Dareth]

If Cortana was named Bingo, would that make Master Chief a farmer?

why oh why

[groobly]

Why oh why do we need cute names for software that tell you nothing about what it's for?

Cortana is ... slightly better...

[bb_matt]

Hey, it sounds like a cheap Ford from the 1970's - but Bingo? WTF? What kind of knuckle-head would want to use that?
Probably the same kind that throws chairs at departing employees.

However, it's not without precedence in this space.
"Bing" ... right, get it Steve, just add an "O" on the end - Bingo! - genius!

Then we have Samsung with .. Bixby... WTF is that?
Depending on what you want to believe:

a small rodent, whom survives on decomposed matter.

The act of verbally and physically assaulting students with a ru

Cortana? You mean Clippy?

[VendettaMF]

Clippy as was, is, and ever shall be.

There is naught in Microsoft but Clippy.

Cortana by any other name

[stevent1965]

They should have named it "Please, how can I permanently remove this piece of shit bloatware that I don't want and didn't ask for, from my computer?" That's a more fitting name.

Bing - Bingo?

[Tony Isaac]

So Bingo does fit with Microsoft's branding of its search engine. If they want lame branding, that would at least be consistent.

My question is, would Bingo be pronounced bong-o, or bin-go?