Microsoft marketing teams last week announced the end of their use of the word Online with respect to their Microsoft Office suite of applications.

The announcement was made on an internal company blog post entitled – Why Office Online is Now Simply Office in which the author outlined the reasons for the change. Described to staff was also the terminology that could be applied when referencing to customers the Microsoft Office suite of applications, so gone are the use of Office Online, Word Online, Excel Online which will now simply be referred to as Office, Word and Excel.

Interesting also to note is that while the https://login.microsoftonline.com URL is still active, the redirect to it from the www.microsoftonline.com seems to have been removed earlier in the year.

In recent times Microsoft’s marketing teams have pursued many product name changes, such as their single account sign-in beginning life being referenced as the Microsoft Wallet, changing to Microsoft Passport, then .Net Passport, followed by the Microsoft Passport Network, and finally Windows Live ID. However, this latest brand change seems almost necessary as much as it does make marketing sense, since it follows more and more people using the Microsoft Office suite across various platforms, and so references in future will be made by staff to Office for Android, Word for iOS or Excel for Windows for example.

Excluded from the branding switch are Microsoft’s server products, with Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Project Online, and Office Online Server remaining as they are.