Microsoft’s “Metro” Style to be called “Windows 8 style UI”

Microsoft over the pass year or so has pushed it’s new design philosophy as “metro-style”. The new tile based design philosophy is used extensively in Windows 8 and even the recently unveiled email service called Outlook.com.

All of a sudden, Microsoft has been asking developers to avoid using the word metro in their apps. It means dropping the word “Metro” from its branding and replacing it with the lamer version “Windows 8 style UI”.

Why the sudden aversion for the word “Metro”?

Microsoft has been unabashedly using the words “Metro style” for describing its new design philosophy. According to ZDnet, the Microsoft suddenly claims, that “Metro” was only a code name during their product development cycle.

Now that Microsoft’s Windows 8 has hit RTM and up for a public launch in 26th October, it has suddenly decided to do away with “Metro”.

In this press release by Microsoft about Steve Ballmer at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show, I came across the term “metro-style” about 12 times and the word “metro” 27 times.

That seems like a rather strange way to NOT promote “metro style” as a public brand.

The real reason could possibly be a trademark litigation over the usage of the word “metro” but one expected Microsoft to do its homework a lot better.

The term “metro style” has been in use for describing Windows 8 design for over a year now. The least Microsoft could have done was make sure they had the copyright to using it as a commercial brand and not leaving it things for so late.