Today, Microsoft pulled back the curtains on its second generation Surface Book. The device improves upon the original Surface Book in nearly every way but the company has screwed up the branding of this product.

While this is technically the third edition of the Surface Book, you could argue that the Performance Base iteration of the Surface Book was version 1.5 or possibly 2, there is a bigger marketing problem.

Earlier this year, when Microsoft announced the new Surface Pro, they didn’t call it the Surface Pro 5, simply the Pro without any numerical value. This is a logical move based on other trends in the industry and made it appear that Microsoft was moving to a product lineup that would be denoted by the year they were released instead of an edition number.

But with the Surface Book 2, Microsoft is not remaining consistent with its branding scheme. This device should have been called simply the Surface Book (2017) to match that of the Surface Pro but here we are with the Surface Book 2.

I know that someone will point out that Surface Book 2 is its own product line but as a family, the Surface lineup either needs to commit to a numeric scheme together or abandon it. Either way of branding these devices is fine, with or without a version number, but Microsoft should not be mixing and matching inside the same brand how it numbers devices.

The Surface Book is likely going to be a great machine and the company has done a good job of listening to user feedback but the branding inconsistencies feel out of place for a company that takes a lot of pride in building their own hardware.

Tagged with Surface Book 2