How 10 Iconic Tech Products Got Their Names 247
lgmac writes "Think Windows Azure is a stupid name? Ever wonder how iPod, BlackBerry and Twitter got their names? Author Tom Wailgum goes inside the process of creating tech product names that are cool but not exclusionary, marketable, and most of all, free of copyright and trademark gotchas. Here's the scoop on ten iconic tech products and how they got their monikers, plus a chat with
the man responsible for naming Azure, BlackBerry, and more. (What's the one he wishes he'd named but didn't? Google.)"
I bet... (Score:4, Funny)
...it involved a lot of pot.
Re:I bet... (Score:5, Interesting)
I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen him working on projects with my own eyes. I always figured a bunch of marketing hacks just got together in a room and tossed around names until one stuck. Maybe I was just biased because that's the way it worked where I was at.
Re:I bet... (Score:5, Funny)
and then there is Apple
it's a phone, what should we call it? iPhone
it's a new Mac, what should we call it? iMac
it handles all your tunes, what should we call it? iTunes
great, boys, we're done here
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And since they're apple, the fact that another company (some networking equipment firm no one's ever heard of) had already thought up and marketed an iPhone is no problem whatsoever.
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Erm wasnt that Linksys?
If I recall correctly they didnt actually make a product for sale.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Re:I bet... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I bet... (Score:5, Funny)
it's a toilet, what should we call it? iShit
it's an intravenous drug, what should we call it? iNject.
it's an Apple fan boy, what should we call it? iDiot.
(just a little joke, Macaniacs..)
Re:I bet... (Score:5, Funny)
"it's a toilet, what should we call it? iShit"
In the Health care industy, a shit is callws a 'BM' (stands for bowel movement)
So an Apple toilet would be called... oh wait, you think big blues lawyers would have an iSue with that?
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I always figured a bunch of marketing hacks just got together in a room and tossed around names until one stuck.
How is it done then? I'm having trouble imagining any other way.
Re:I bet... (Score:5, Informative)
product / company type
target audience
what sort of feeling the name should convey
the regions that the name will be used in
Namers then go off on their own and compose massive lists of names. I've seen the names run the gamut from simple mashups of common words to mashups of greek / latin roots to words based on etymological research of the original target "feeling" words. Then the namers get together and reduce the list down to a set of finalists before presenting them for client review.
Sometimes it takes a few iterations... Particularly if the objective is to get a globally trademarkable word that won't be misinterpreted as meaning anything offensive in another country.
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Hey maygn! Why you buy a car that no go?
Re:I bet... (Score:5, Funny)
So, what kind of names do their children have? Did they spend months obsessively trying to determine a name that conveys "don't beat me up, now, please hire me later"?
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Depends on how set on a name their wife is, it could be over in a matter of seconds.
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John.
Re:I bet... (Score:5, Insightful)
And I'd add that some places actively test the names, as well. E.g., asking what people think in focus groups of different names. Or, more subtly, showing a new product to different people with different names on it, and getting stats about their reactions.
Depending too much on what executives personally think of names is dangerous, because executives are very rarely representative of the target market. That lesson applies to lots of other things, too, like features and pricing.
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So, really, it's just a bunch of marketing hacks who go off on their own and come up with a bunch of names and then get together in a room and toss them around until one sticks.
If nothing sticks, rinse and repeat.
Re:I bet... (Score:5, Insightful)
Naming is actually a really big business and is usually a pretty painful process. I know someone that was a professional namer that worked for a big branding house for a while. The time they spent coming up with names was pretty incredible.
F/OSS, in general, fails miserably here. "Linpus Lite" on the EEE PCs? WTF?
The name should not matter, but in reality, it does. Unfortunately, OSS projects seem to only accept a rebranding under threats of legal action.
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Don't forget the GIMP. Or the Apache ("a patchy") HTTP server.
Sure, they have clever origins, and that's fine for projects just getting off the ground, but it becomes a PR issue when it starts being used or heard by the mainstream.
Re:I bet... (Score:4, Funny)
Hey if there was a patchy helicopter with me in its cross hairs I would be running pretty fast - not that running would do me much good. :P
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same goes for logos. I remember a friend of mine saying that he got to see the Nike sketchbook, he said the original brainstorm of "possible" logos was as thick as a bible (if the bible was printed on regular paper, not the thin paper).
in the end, all the work for a swoosh :)
Re:I bet... (Score:5, Funny)
Mitch Hedberg had a bit on one of his comedy CDs about product naming. Paraphrasing: take whatever the product does and add "er."
"What's this thing do?"
"It keeps things fresh."
"Then that's a fresher. I'm goin' on break."
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According to the article, it has to do with a lot more than smoking pot. Lexicon Branding typically uses well known and loved words, phrases and syllables, in trendy-sounding configurations [lexicon-branding.com], and I would stress that smoking pot in doing so would only help you reach that type of audience, and in most cases Lexicon's audience is much broader than that.
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iPot?
How about the "iForOneWelcomeOur...".
On second thought - nah...
MSFT (Score:2, Insightful)
Name it what you want, but the RESULT is what gives products their reputations, not the names of said products. The only saving grace of XP is how terrible Vista was received by the public, so in comparison, XP looked much better. And
Re:MSFT (Score:5, Funny)
"If you want to keep us secure, take a page from Linux and open up your OS to public scrutiny so that people can perfect it. What are you afraid of?"
You must be new here
>mfh (56)
or not
Re:MSFT (Score:4, Interesting)
Name it what you want, but the RESULT is what gives products their reputations, not the names of said products. The only saving grace of XP is how terrible Vista was received by the public, so in comparison, XP looked much better. And how interesting this is to me because I remember how terrible XP was in the beginning.
I think that's BS. Other than a small subset of people who were upset about activation, XP was pretty good from the get go. SP1 made it good without reservations. (and I don't mean this is a big linux vs Windows vs Mac flamefest) Most people switching to XP had been using 95/98/ME. XP--without reservation--is better than all of them. If you were coming from 2K, it was less of a jump, but still an improvement for most users (imho, I know some people debate this last point).
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Yea, unless you like playing games. There are just as many games that worked on ME that don't work on XP as games that worked on XP and don't on Vista. I _still_ have a PC with 98 installed, and I _still_ have VirtualBox Windows 98 images because that's the only way I can get a lot of the games I like to run. Some of them will run on Wine too, but a lot of them tend to lock up randomly.
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Yeah, XP lost some backwards compatibility. Well, to be precise, XP GAINED backwards compatibility over its predecessor--Windows 2000--but did lack the ability to run some 95/98/ME/DOS games. I don't think that's a fair measure to say XP is worse than ME.
I run a number of games in DOSBox, but I can't think off the top of my head of any 95/98 games that didn't work in XP. Not denying it, but what are some examples?
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This system is shutting down. Please save all work in progress and log off. Any unsaved changes will be lost. This shutdown was initiated by NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
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Yes, Blaster was a major PITA and a major worm. There have even been several since then that preyed on the same kind of vulnerabilities (Zotob and sasser spring to mind). Do you remember teardrop? That one even got linux. There were worms decades before XP, and I think it's hard to argue that the worm situation on Windows has gotten WORSE since pre-XP. Each release of windows (including Vista) has gotten better. Better is of course a relative term, but still.
Re:MSFT (Score:5, Insightful)
Amen. And think about it... Micro-soft itself is a pretty ho-hum name, in fact it's downright lame. Today, if the company name would be still available, no one in their right mind would give their software firm a name like that, even freelancing consultants wouldn't be so silly as to pick that as their firm's name. But they rose to greatness (in influence and dollars if not reputation for quality), and thus the name lost its lameness and became associated with an extremely succesful tech company.
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Amen. And think about it... Micro-soft itself is a pretty ho-hum name, in fact it's downright lame. Today, if the company name would be still available, no one in their right mind would give their software firm a name like that, even freelancing consultants wouldn't be so silly as to pick that as their firm's name. But they rose to greatness (in influence and dollars if not reputation for quality), and thus the name lost its lameness and became associated with an extremely succesful tech company.
Perfecty expressed. And the best example of this ever?
Drum roll.... (pun intended)
The Beatles.
Awful name. And now forever the name of greatness.
Microsoft "Innovates" a lot (Score:4, Funny)
Who cares if we find out that you people at Microsoft haven't done any real work since 1990... we ALREADY KNOW THAT.
Nah, their consumer OSes have seen the addition of memory protection. Beore then, Microsoft did some real doesn't-work.
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well, the thing of it is, in Vista, they pop up EVERY time. Any Unix or Linux I've ever used can be configured to pop up a dialog only after a certain amount of time has passed since the last dialog.
That's great if you're configuring a new system or installing a lot of new hardware or software. Enter your password once, get it done with no hassle.
Vista, you have to click Accept *TWICE* for every application that needs to make a change; sometimes *TWICE* for every change.
Ubuntu on my laptops, HTPC, one serve
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Name it what you want, but the RESULT is what gives products their reputations, not the names of said products.
This is true, but not totally relevant.
Especially for new products, a name is a big part of the first impression they create. A good name can't turn crap into gold, but it can persuade people to try your product and find out whether or not it's any good. And it certainly can help make it easy for people to talk and learn about your product.
Some products succeed based on their technical awesomeness and nothing else. Some products succeed on marketing alone, as anybody who has purchased from late-night TV or
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Oh I suppose I had that one coming. But just think about this for a second, Mr. Ballmer... would you like to be throwing a cardboard box (ie: your new office/home) -- or would you prefer to get your big fat fingers on a nice plush Italian leather chair? Your wealth is intimately linked with the act of listening to the public. We want change, now. Not spare change... we want a major course-correction, globally.
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Remind me how it's divested entirely from the Microsoft shares he holds?
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Remind me how it's divested entirely from the Microsoft shares he holds?
Even if Microsoft stock collapsed to a relatively unthinkable low, Ballmer probably would end up with stock worth north of $100M.
Remember that Microsoft has billions of cash in the bank, a large amount of real property, and no debt. So, unlike many other companies, their stock has a absolute bottom value (it could go lower, but then it would be pushed right back up as people bought it).
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His explanation of Google's name is BS (Score:5, Insightful)
He says before Google, all the search engines were engineering names like WebCrawler, Webfinder, Websearcher, etc.
Apparently he never heard of search engines like AltaVista, Yahoo!, Lycos, etc. Seriously? Names are his business and he doesn't remember any of those?
Re:His explanation of Google's name is BS (Score:4, Funny)
man those last ones you said are really from the past, im having trouble remembering them too. when was the last time you heard of yahoo?
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yeah, I've never heard of yahoo either. I'm going to jeeves it.
Quick, someone mail this article... (Score:5, Funny)
... to the GIMP devs.
Gimp (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, what you said is funny, but seriously now I had to pitch using a free image suite to a customer who was kinda penny-pinching, and when I suggested that we "bring out the GIMP" the customer started laughing at me, and they became somewhat violent. I ducked the coffee she threw at me, but only after I explained (while dodging numerous other desk utensils) that GIMP stood for "GNU Image Manipulation Program" did the abuse dwindle.
And then she said, "What the hell does a GNU have to do with anything? You people are all fucking crazy!! ARRRRRGHHHHH!!!!" And she had a coronary and passed out from too much bacon and eggs... cholesterol rich, fatty foods, apparently add up over the years.
Why couldn't they call it something like "Expensive Looking Free Graphics Suite" so like people could present it and be cheered for mentioning the product? The customer might have invited me to join her for a cup of coffee instead of hurl the damn thing at me. Although that tends to be reduced to "ELFGS" which sounds equally as annoying.
Let's have a name-fork of the project! I vote for the name "Rez". That way, I could say, "MRS. Customer, we have just what you need in the Rez project, a free graphics utility. I'm not sure what this GIMP project is you keep balking at, but the last guy who brought up that project is a fool. Go with our project instead and we'll use Rez. It sounds cooler."
Of course I'm joking around a little but apart from my exaggeration, this was the level of irritation expressed by said customer in regards to the GIMP moniker.
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What's really amusing is that you got modded interesting while GP got modded funny.
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Taken. [wikipedia.org]
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"Or I would call it 'Graphium' which sounds like a radioactive element and is the name of a butterfly."
You might think you're kidding, but Adobe are right ahead of you, they already went there with their Creative Suite 3 icon sets that push the two-letter 'element' designations. Ps for Photoshop, Fl for Flash, etc.
I kind of like Rez myself. Except it's got to have already been taken, right?
But yes, GIMP is not quite the worst name ever, but up there in the top ten. It's deliberately and aggressively offensi
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In general giving Open Source Apps horrible names, and odd Icons to go with it hurts the adoption of open source more then most anything else. First there is no real point except to feed RMS's ego to put G for GNU in its name. If you care what license it is then you read the license (at least the title), otherwise you will download and use it anyways. Next the name and/or the icon should help the person know what the app does. Next the name shouldn't sound like a 3rd party ripoff of a well known brand. N
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We'll have to wake them up then, won't we?
the new way: (Score:2)
Find a free domain and name your product after it.
Hint: it'll probably be spelt strangely.
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Re:the new way: (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, by all means someone should start selling a Skami Computer, hopefully via infomercial! I'd recommend filling out the product line with a "Do!Be!Us!" smartphone, a "Krapee" monitor line, the "De-Funk(t)" music player, the "Borkt" series of printers, and the "InnerFierce" wireless networking gear.
But please, if you do this, make sure you set up your "world headquarters" in a semi-abandoned strip mall, and move it every time the landlord kicks you out for non-payment. (And no, you can't ever pay rent when running a scam. A penny stolen is a penny earned.)
The good news is you'll be able to sell Vista on this stuff without increasing your complaint load. Heck, given the target audience, you could probably charge them for two copies and call it Double Vista.
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Hint: it'll probably be spelt strangely.
What do you know? http://www.speltstrangely.com/ [speltstrangely.com] is available!
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Dammit...I know I forgot to do something after that post ;)
Re:the new way: (Score:5, Funny)
Hint: it'll probably be spelt strangely.
What do you know? http://www.speltstrangely.com/ [speltstrangely.com] is available!
Finally a name for my OSS speech recognition project!
Depends on where you've been (Score:3, Funny)
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At least if you say twitter and google to a girl and they won't take it the wrong way.
awk, biff, grep, sed, emacs, du, chmod:
I definitely see a drink thrown in my face and a slap in the future. Even from imaginary ones.
No Copyright For Names (Score:4, Informative)
> ...free of copyright ... gotchas.
A name cannot have any "copyright gotchas" . Names cannot be protected by copyright.
TWAIN (Score:2)
As we all know, if you have technology without an interesting name, you can always make an acronym.
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I'm still trying to find funding for my Tamper Indicative Toggle Switch. I even offered to change the name to Authenticated Smart Switch. For some reason, my boss objected to both names.
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You should stop try to find funding, and just do it. Like liboobs [gnome.org].
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You could host it here:
http://www.youboob.com/ [youboob.com]
Windows 7 (Score:2)
Microsoft's Mike Nash announced the name this way: "Simply put, this is the seventh release of Windows, so therefore 'Windows 7' just makes sense."
So, has anyone actually figured out exactly what the previous 6 versions of Windows were?
Re:Windows 7 (Score:4, Informative)
I believe it's based on the official major releases of Windows NT, since the 9x kernel was abandoned.
1. Windows NT 3.1
2. Windows NT 3.5
3. Windows NT 4.0
4. Windows 2000
5. Windows XP
6. Windows Vista
7. Windows 7
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Yeah, sorry, I should have been more clear on that...
Windows XP == Windows 2003
Windows Vista == Windows 2008
In terms of the kernel, they're considered the same.
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If you look at the kernel versions of Windows NT [wikipedia.org], you can see why. Based on what I've heard about Windows 7, it really shouldn't be named 7 but 6.1 as it wasn't really a major revision.
That said both OS X and Windows 7 are rather unoriginal in naming. With OS X, at least they were consistent about the different versions of OS X. Windows NT 3.5 -> Windows NT 4.0 -> Windows 2000 -> Windows XP -> Windows Vista -> Windows 7. Not much consistency there.
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It's from the kernel versions:
(In the list below both 9x and NT included, some minor releases are missed out, and named releases have their kernel version in brackets)
1. Windows 1
2. Windows 2
3. Windows 3.0, 3.1, 3.11, NT 3.1, NT 2.5 etc
4. Windows 95 (9x 4.0), NT 4.0, etc.
5. Windows 98 (9x 5.0), Windows Me (9x 5.1), Windows 2000 (NT 5.0), Windows XP (NT 5.1), Windows Server 2003 (NT 5.2)
6. Windows Vista (NT 6.0), Windows Server 2008 (NT 6.0)
7. Windows 7 (NT 6.1)
It breaks down a little from the fact that the
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*that should be NT 3.5 not 2.5...
Azure? (Score:3, Funny)
I figured that they were tired of hearing about the BSOD, and "Azure screen of death" would at least sound nicer.
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And the resulting acronym forms the first part of a sentence one might hear from a victim.
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Second? Try third. (Score:4, Informative)
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(abrowser in the repos)
Debian was ok with Firefox (Score:5, Informative)
> Then it became Firefox, and Debian didn't like that and called it IceWeasel.
Debian had no objection whatever to calling it Firefox. Mozilla objected to Debian doing so.
Re:Second? Try third. (Score:5, Informative)
No, Debian was forced to rename it due to their stance on trademarks.
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3634591 [internetnews.com]
Re:Second? Try third. (Score:5, Insightful)
The second iteration was actually probably the better, branding-wise.
They were all set -- Firebird for web, Thunderbird for email, Sunbird for calendar -- even things like Songbird for music. I think there were even logos.
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IceWeasel? No no, that is too close to sounding like a trademark law firm.
German naming process... (Score:5, Funny)
A couple decades back there was a German man with his own branding/naming company. A Japanese company, not satisfied with their experience for English speaking markets, called him up and asked him to help out with a new car. Naturally, he inquired as to the project timeline, due dates etc.
Nervously, the Japanese marketer replied that they needed something for the following Monday.
After a few moments pause, the German replied "Dat Soon? eh?"
Later that same year he took a trip to London on business. While eating at a local steakhouse, he asked "what's dis here sauce?"
Re:German naming process... (Score:5, Funny)
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Not a car: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worcestershire_sauce [wikipedia.org]
Re:German naming process... (Score:5, Informative)
Pun fail.
It's pronounced like ""wuster"".
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TEN pages?! (Score:3, Insightful)
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Thinkpad (Score:2)
I thought the Thinkpad was named after IBM decades old corporate slogan, which is THINK [ibm.com].
Red Hat (Score:2)
I am surprised that Red Hat had nothing to do with White Hat and Black Hat Hackers...I always assumed Red Hat was an option C; Not necessarily good, and not necessarily evil.
"Pacific Telesis Group" (Score:2)
What I wanna know is why the idiot(s) who came up with this stinker of a name - Pacific Telesis Group - for Pacific Bell's holding company were able to not only keep their jobs but make out like bandits, to the tune of three quarters of a million dollars. That, of course, does not include the expense of re-signing the corporate vehicle fleet, changing stationery, and the like. Guess who got to foot the whole bill? (Forget about GOVERNMENT taxes: we're being "taxed" far worse as consumers by corporate exc
A pretty poorly researched article (Score:3, Insightful)
Now if we can just (Score:3, Funny)
get online news websites to understand how the scrollbars work in a web browser, instead of breaking one 'page' into a dozen small ones that, instead of the whole article loading at once, and then being able to scroll smoothly, instead of having to click next, next, next, and have frustrating pauses while trying to read.
After I read the first 'bit' and realized Id have to click, wait, click, wait to read the rest, I just closed the tab instead of bothering.
Occasionally on sites like that there is a 'printable version' that gives the whole article as one, but lately it seems to just give a 'printable version' of that one bit of the story. /. editors - lets not encourage these sites by linking to them and giving them the ad traffic.
Third time's a charm (Score:3, Interesting)
Naming of Panasonic and Epson (Score:3, Interesting)
Panasonic (Originally Matsushita) actually got the name of their company from a review of one of their speaker systems. The article said that they had great "all around sound." All around translates to pana and sound translates to sound.
Epson (Originally Seiko) made a small printer named the EP-101 which was the worlds first compact, lightweight digital printer. My grandfather found large demand in it in the U.S. so they needed to create a new name to use(Seiko is a watch corp in the US). He told them the story about how Panasonic came about the name and left on a flight back stateside.
When he got back, he had a message waiting already and they told him that they were naming it Epson. He told them that is a horrible idea because people would confuse it with epsom salt. They told him it was his fault because it was his idea and explained that they were naming it based on their first product sale like panasonic did. So the name comes from "son of EP" to the more consumer friendly Epson.
Re:what about the one that concerns us all... (Score:5, Funny)
RTFFAQ.
http://slashdot.org/faq/slashmeta.shtml#sm150 [slashdot.org]
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I'd have to say, the ones who saw him peeping called him Windows and the ones who didn't called him Microsoft.