Microsoft sponsors Firefox!

mssponsorfirefox

Photographs credit: “gnell” / Flickr.com

However the money isn’t going towards the Mozilla Corporation. Instead, it’s gone towards an equal if not better cause, the Chengdu Panda Breeding and Research Center. As it happens, Microsoft China has sponsored a pair of Red Pandas, otherwise affectionately known as the “Firefox”, and named them in true sponsorship spirit “Microsoft” and “Unlimited Potential” respectively.

One of these little guys is facing an identity crisis. A subtle joke? Perhaps. But generous nevertheless. 🙂

P.S.: Here’s a video of these cute little buggers in action at the park. Obligatory “Om Nom Nom Nom”.

Update 2: Similarly to English, “Microsoft” in Chinese is literally translated as “very soft”. Especially with a lack of differentiation between nouns and pronouns in Chinese, it is a surprisingly appropriate nickname.

22 insightful thoughts

  1. @Rom: Repeated one-syllable words are very common in Chinese for nicknames 😉

  2. That red fellow is so cute! Btw can you read Chinese, Long? Obviously, I guess because you grew in China.

  3. @Serb: Yeah I can read a bit of Chinese (forgot a lot of it without practice), but I still speak Chinese.

  4. Cute 😀 Unlimited Potential for a name can be looked as a subtle joke.. Calling a red panda “Microsoft” on the other hand seems weird 🙁

  5. @Long Zheng: Yeah it is, I’m half-Chinese 🙂 but can’t speak the language, can understand some fookien dialect though..

  6. As a Chinese I have to point out that “Microsoft” is translated into “a little bit soft” or “Tiny and Soft”., but not “Very Soft’

  7. LOL that’s great! I clicked the link thinking that it couldn’t be true 🙂 Very funny!!! Thanks for the laugh!!!

  8. They could came up with more appropriate names like Win Win and Word Word. I don’t want to know Bill Gates children’s names.

  9. @Long and Ryan: Concerning the Chinese name for Microsoft 微软. It is a direct translation of the original English name Micro-soft. 微 for micro, 软 for soft. A direct interpretation of the Chinese name would be “slightly soft”.

    I think the real subtle joke is that Unlimited Potential 潛潛 (qián qián) has the same Mandarin pronunciation as “money money” 錢錢 (qián qián). A good-fortune name. 🙂

  10. Could you ever imaging Microsoft Firefox 3.5 or Windows Firefox 3.5? That sound really weird but that will increase Microsoft’s profit a lot.

Comments are closed.