Microsoft seems to be making progress in unwinding the habit of convoluted naming schemes. I would love to hear a testimonial from a Microsoft marketing insider as to where the naming trend came from, and how they view it internally.
My most recent encounter was looking into the product currently known as "Microsoft Blend for Visual Studio 2012", previously known as "Microsoft Expression Blend for Visual Studio". I learn from Wikipedia that the article was originally code-named "Sparkle" - it's funny to me because the code name is the name Apple would have launched with, whereas at Microsoft, it's not "customer ready" until they've given it a suitably unwieldy name.
No, it was previously known only as "Microsoft Expression Blend", no Visual Studio. The new name reflects that you can no longer get it standalone, you must get it as part of VS2012/2013.
My most recent encounter was looking into the product currently known as "Microsoft Blend for Visual Studio 2012", previously known as "Microsoft Expression Blend for Visual Studio". I learn from Wikipedia that the article was originally code-named "Sparkle" - it's funny to me because the code name is the name Apple would have launched with, whereas at Microsoft, it's not "customer ready" until they've given it a suitably unwieldy name.