Collanos User Forum

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

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.

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.) :)

No, don't like the name what-so-ever.   Nearly everyone that I've introduced the product to has the following reaction - "Collanos ? ...what does that mean?   And now it's just a total joke.  Here are some of the way it's referred to:

Colonoscopy
Colon-2-Colon
C-2-C
Peer-Colonic

And the most interesting, was when one new user after waiting for hours to get connected and online ...immediately IM'd everyone saying "hey! my colon is now online".   

At least with Groove, you could make some cool references ... "I'm groovin today", "get your groove on", "I'm in a groove", ... or "groove this!" 

So no, the name doesn't make sense.   Does it have to ...nope ...sure doesn't.   But it helps if it does.

/Clint

I am new to the community, so pardon my untimely reply to this thread.

I do not think that you need to change either your company name or your product name.

Some people may say that they are the same, but in your case they are not.

Your company name is Collanos, and your product name is actually Workplace, but you differentiate it by saying Collanos Workplace.  It's simple, yet elegant.

Just look at Microsoft and Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office.  The products are actually Windows (which Microsoft seems to be actually trying to get away from) and Office.

My only suggestion is to just make sure that the product name (in this case Workplace) actually describes the product (which it does).  One or two words (or a compound word) should be enough.  Use three words only in extreme circumstances.

Keep up the good work!

It does not matter if it makes sense or not.

It is unique and memorable.

The most important thing is, does the software live up to expectations?

I think it does!

Unique is good!  When we were talking about using a P2P collaboration tool, the other names seemed to blend together.  Way to cutesy.  "Collanos" is kind of a verbal Rorschach test: you can read into it anything you want.