This happens at small businesses too. And, it's actually a lot sadder because truly nobody cares. At least MS will get some blog posts about people being confused or complaining. Small business execs who are hyped up for a re-branding usually don't even get that.
I work in biotech and this is rampant there - our company changed names three times before we ever had a product (or any revenue at all). These were not small name changes, either - they redecorated the entire office to the new company colors each time.
Hysterical - I started to formulate a theory on this that leadership distracts themselves with these types of tasks just as a person might engage in avoidance. Of course, I'm about 56 years late: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law_of_Triviality
Too true - we also had a marketing department for an entire year before we had said product. Now I certainly understand that you need a marketing department before the product launches - but consider that at a time when development was in full swing (about three quarters before launch) we had two software developers and three marketing people.
