Steve Ballmer, the founder and CEO of Microsoft, is credited with coming up with the idea for Cortana, the voice-activated assistant that now powers the company’s Windows 10 operating system. Ballmer was working on a new product at Microsoft when he came up with the idea for Cortana. At first, he called it “Bingo.” But then Ballmer realized that people would be more likely to call Cortana something other than just “Bingo.” So he changed it to “Cortana.”
This bit of information regarding what almost was comes from a conversation between Alice Newton Rex of Big Bets and Sandeep Paruchuri (Via Windows Central), a former Microsoft Project Manager.
According to Paruchuri, “Ballmer had poor product taste.” Before leaving, he suggested a name for Microsoft’s virtual assistant. “He wanted the whole thing to be Microsoft branded. And then his parting gift was to try to name it Bingo. But we waited it out.”
Current CEO Satya Nadella was a big fan of the assistant project, but less so of former CEO Ballmer’s suggested name. With him at the helm, Microsoft stuck with the Cortana name we all know and love today.
Is Bingo a bad name? Not necessarily, but it doesn’t have the same feel as Cortana, which is based on the AI from the beloved video game franchise Halo. While Cortana isn’t the most successful virtual assistant, it’s hardly the name that’s prevented it from being successful. We can’t imagine calling it Bingo (or anything else) would make that much of a difference.
Just be thankful you never had to say “Hey Bingo” to your PC or Windows Phone.
RELATED: Android 12 Has Windows Phone’s Best Idea
