Did I mention we’d been bought out by another company some time ago? I think I may have ranted over the issue a few times

Anyway, we used to sell two products that shared some same code and did much the same. One was named after X (because it runs on Linux using X Windows) the other after windows because it runs on Windows.

The marketing guys at the new company decided they ought to have a streamlined name like “blah for windows” and ”blah for linux”. Great except we keep getting people trying to swap between them thinking they are identical. They seriously differ in places.

Choosing names is a big issue in marketing - Pen Island could have had a better name for their website than penisland.com for instance. They say the Mini Metro marketing team had to come up with a name and just as a starting point they were given 6,000 already considered and rejected!

However, a thought to engineering or even a moment to reflect why a company that knew the product used different names could have saved a whole raft of support issues and disgruntled customers. Marketing has its place but that place shouldn’t always be at the top of the heap.

Heard a great comment today - unfortunately I can’t claim it as my own - but I love the way it sums the situation up.