Aral Balkan

I just saw an ad for Mix '09, Microsoft's main developer conference (their version of Adobe MAX). The interesting thing is that there was absolutely no Microsoft branding on the ad at all. The other Mix '09 banner on the same ad similarly had no Microsoft branding.

When you visit the Mix '09 site, you still don't see Microsoft branding and, although the copy mentions Microsoft, there seems to be a marked attempt to disassociate the Microsoft brand from the event.

The introductory paragraph, for example, reads:

There’s something different in the air at MIX09. Some might call it love - love of the interaction between designers and developers; love of inspiration and innovation through interactive media; love of everything that makes the Web truly great.

No mention of Microsoft.

In the About Mix/Who Should Attend sidebar, Microsoft is mentioned but I couldn't find a single mention that Mix is organized by Microsoft or is Microsoft's conference there or on the About page:

The MIX Conference is a gathering of designers and developers who build cutting edge web sites. If you want to discuss the future of the Web, learn about the latest web technologies from Microsoft, or just rub shoulders with industry professionals, MIX is the place to be.

If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you do see the Microsoft logo and a message "This site is hosted for Microsoft by ORCSWEB © 2007 - 2008 Microsoft" which is the only thing that actually tells you that the conference is owned and organized by Microsoft.

For all its faults, Adobe at least calls their conference Adobe MAX and it's hosted on their web site. It's clear right from the name that the conference is owned and organized with Adobe. Truth in advertising FTW.

It's interesting to see Microsoft trying to keep such a low profile with their own conference. Are they trying to make it appear like the conference is a community-organized conference or are they actually ashamed of their own brand? Could it be that the Microsoft brand has been so badly tarnished in certain industries that it has actually begun to harm them, leading to efforts to disassociate themselves from it?

Comments

• Mix, was that name used before or after Max, as it seems a bit of a rip. Then again I guess they do have Rich Interactive Applications as opposed to Internet...

  by Rob on 2008-11-26 13:13:31

• I don't know... with the exception of my silly character, do you REALLY think someone will sign up for MIX and not realize it's a Microsoft centered (exclusive) conference?

  by Phillip Kerman on 2008-11-27 17:49:58

• AFAIK, MAX goes all the way to 2003, where is was actually a Macromedia conference (hence the "M" and the name was no doubt influenced by the "MX"-branded line of tools that Macromedia had at the time). Microsoft MIX started in 2006.

  by Aral on 2008-11-26 13:38:41

• I bet they want to developers to attend by mistake. 'Oh this is a MS conference? Damn it, but since I'm here now...'

  by Stefan Richter on 2008-11-26 13:54:58

• Is Microsoft’s brand so tarnished that they’re ashamed to use it? IMHO... Yes!

  by Tom on 2008-11-26 14:00:33

• Jens from flashmagazine twittered this link earlier today : http://blogs.msdn.com/msmossyblog/archive/2008/11/22/the-twists-and-turns-this-industry-takes.aspx It's some Microsoft fanboy taking a stab at Adobe. It's amazing really...

  by sakri on 2008-11-26 14:18:48

• Aral, Typo, I put the (design) in the wrong spot, but the intent was Adobe detracted from it's core base to be more "like" Microsoft. It's something you yourself realised via my comments as well, so to be fair .. weak moment? :) MIX is always regarded as a Microsoft conference and any google search will give you a clear picture of this. I think you're putting too much effort into portraying something that isn't there. I'll talk with the branding owners of MIX to see if there is some valid reasons for this, but on a personal level - i'm kind of glad we didn't push the Microsoft logo onto this one, as at times I would like us to let our own products/events etc stand on their own two feet in a sort of neutral zone. As to promoting some seductive way to trick people into thinking it's not Microsoft? hmmm... good fiction writing is hard to come by is my only rebuttle here :) These aren't the droids you're looking for. - Scott Barnes Rich Platforms Product Manager Microsoft.

  by Scott Barnes on 2008-11-26 22:00:48

• Hi Sakri, that's Scott Barnes's blog. He's not a Microsoft fanboy, he _works_ for Microsoft as a Product Manager for the Rich Client Platform team. You know how Steve Jobs has a reality distortion field that he uses on other people? Microsoft apparently has one too, only _they_ live in it. It's a lovely place where their core strength (vs. Adobe) is "design". Scott's definitely got comedy nailed! :)

  by Aral on 2008-11-26 14:49:00

• Actually I prefer to take a neutral stance as it benefits me the most when deciding... I also agree with Scott on some (not all) of the points he makes on his blog post. It is refreshing to see that MIX was not branded as MICROSOFT and kind of reminds me of when FITC change their name from Flash In The Can and had a few sessions about Processing. This is a step in the right direction in my opinion...

  by ryan on 2008-11-27 13:50:53

• Hey Ryan, the main thing to remember, though, is that Flash in the Can was not/is not organized by Adobe. There's something to be said about trying to make MIX appear to be a general conference for developers and designers, only to have all the topics cover Microsoft technologies. As far as the ads go, I would go so far as to say that it falls into misrepresentation. At the very least, it hits me as a shady ethical practice.

  by Aral on 2008-11-27 14:38:58

• @Scott: I realized after reading your article again that it was a typo on your part (and commented as much on your blog, as you reference) :) See my note to Ryan above, however. I still feel that there is a very visible attempt to portray Mix, at least in the ads, as a general community conference for developers and designers -- which it absolutely is not.

  by Aral on 2008-11-27 14:42:55

• Totally... this is exactly the reason this guy ended up at the wrong conference by mistake: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCP6ruklz_I

  by Phillip Kerman on 2008-11-26 16:52:39

• I think you're kind of right Aral - it's like this Steve Yegge talk: http://blip.tv/file/319044/ it takes a generation for a brand to recover from a bad image, so it's better to just use a different name - in this case MIX or .NET instead of Microsoft.

  by Iain on 2008-11-27 12:26:43

• Hi Aral, I've been part of the team that organizes MIX since our inaugural MIX06 conference. I'm big fan of your /singularity concept and long-time subscriber to your blog. We certainly don't intend to deceive anyone about the nature of the event, and the "about" page is pretty explicit that this is hosted by Microsoft and is a peer conference to PCD and TechEd. In 4 years of running the conference, this is honestly the first time I've seen someone suggest that we were hiding or "ashamed" of being Microsoft. On the other hand, this event has always had a lot of community participation and contribution. If you look at the sessions that have been announced so far, you can take the descriptions at face value. Molly and Nate are doing workshops on Web Standards, plain and simple -- no Microsoft shilling, probably no MSFT-centric content at all, just fundamental education that people can use, whether they build on the Microsoft stack or not. Robby Ingebretsen, another workshop presenter, also presented at the conference, IIRC. Every year, we've had a high % of non-MSFT speakers, and we've had people from Amazon, Yahoo, EBay, AOL, MySpace, etc. give talks that included competitor technologies. We were the first MSFT-hosted event to dedicate 50+ sessions to "open space" where attendees could do their own sessions -- we even recorded and uploaded those to the web within hours (and of course, every MIX conference has uploaded 100% of our sessions to the web for free, which allows people to follow from home.) I'm not saying that MIX is like "An Event Apart", but it's not like Adobe MAX or Microsoft PDC, either. The high level of community participation isn't due to us being "ashamed" of ourselves; it's just being realistic about the fact that we're not calling the shots on the web; we are just a participant. I guess the best way to get a flavor for it is to talk to people who have been there, or better yet attend or present yourself! We'll be opening up submissions for presenters and presentation topics shortly (and my e-mail is joshuaa (at) msft if you want to reach me directly). Note that we also run "MIX Online", which is a sister to, but independent of the conference. That's the site where we publish open-source projects we create to help push along adoption of web standards. Our first release was the Microformats Toolkit, which was released under a BSD-style license, and has already been extended to Google Chrome, Firefox, WordPress, etc. by the community. Again, pretty much 100% of the twitter/friendfeed and blog reaction to this was similar to Chris Messina's reaction: http://twitter.com/factoryjoe/statuses/971184651 -- that is, people seemed to be surprised that MSFT is doing these things, but not deceived about the fact that it *is* MSFT. Cheers, Joshua

  by Joshua Allen [msft] on 2008-11-28 01:04:04

• This is quite a hot info. I'll share it on Digg.

  by How to Get Six Pack Fast on 2009-04-15 15:07:42

• Any idea if there is such conference in 2010 called Mix 10 and also can anyone participate in this. I mean any developer?

  by Wild Blue on 2010-02-20 20:05:03