The danger of weak branding or: which MeeGo is the real MeeGo?

By following various blogs and forums, it occured to me there is quite a confusion as to what actually MeeGo is. The basic idea, announced in Barcelona during the MWC, was to have Maemo and Moblin merged into a new OS called MeeGo. So far so good (number of MeeGos: 1). However, recently Nokia re-branded Maemo 6 as MeeGo / Harmattan, which uses a different package format, repositories, so not quite the same MeeGo that was originally announced, despite the general similarity (number of MeeGos: 2). In the same vein, Moblin folks started calling Moblin 2.2 simply MeeGo (number of MeeGos: 3). But wait, the plot thickens! It has recently been confirmed that the N900 will be Nokia's reference platform for ARM-based MeeGo devices. Now, this is closest to the MWC MeeGo, but is just a developer reference platform, not something that end users are expected to install/use (number of MeeGoos: 4). Getting dizzy? Take a look at meego.com, you'll see that MeeGo also intends to provide separate versions (as in different user experience) of  MeeGo not just for Pocketables. There will be distinct editions for Netbooks, Media Phones, TVs, In-vehicle devices and, as you probably guessed it by now, they're all called MeeGo (number of MeeGoos: 5, 6, 7, 8). So the next time somebody asks for or talks about MeeGo, make sure it is clear what the object of the talk is, lest the discussion turn into Marklar.

This problem has been usually tackled by subbranding, for example Ubuntu very successfully uses names like KUbuntu, XUbuntu, Edubuntu, Ubuntu Netbook Remix, etc. Why is this so important you ask? MeeGo targets a very wide range of devices and users, far more diverse than Ubuntu. By allowing everything to be called MeeGo, despite having different UIs, architectures, application stores, DRMs, APIs, packaging systems and repositories, MeeGo becomes a weak brand. It will no longer be important whether something is MeeGo as it provides no guarantee of anything except for a generic Qt based compatibility (which means little to end-users). It's crucial this branding mess gets cleared up by the powers that be before the first releases are made and the first devices hit the streets, otherwise MeeGo (all 8 of them if I counted correctly) risks going from a strong distribution brand for the embedded industry to being just a generic synonym for 'Linux with Qt'.