Does Collanos Make Sense?

[Gil Heiman]

Not that we will change our company's name, but we are curious...

[beaubien]

Wow, to be blunt, not really. I recognize that "unique but meaningful" names, especially within the context of a "globe chock full of languages", is a deep and wide subject. Changing the name of a company is expensive and often you will loose critical brainshare doing so.  (As in I wondered why AT&T gave up its 100 year old name ... whoops now they are back). How about considering just changing the name of the product, and keeping the name of the company?

A couple of asides: Be careful what you wish for: We use a CMS tool called Mambo, for our web site which changed it's name to Joomla. I just bought a 2006 book on Mambo at the local bookstore. I personally think these guys moved in the wrong direction, Mambo was cool, but Joomla is hard to say and is meaningless. Also, there is a concept called branding, as in "you don't need. or even want, your product name to be the company name." It pigeon holes you. Imagine if Microsoft was "Operating Systems-R-Us"?

We also had a nice email/fax/voice integrated voice mail system called Callware, and that company re-branded the product as "Collabra" ... and went under. So be careful, I'd advise you tread lightly.

[purplebooks]

I don't get the name but I don't understand Amazon either. I think the product is more important than the name. (I think Engelbert Humperdinck showed that.)