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Presumably you are referring to the former Sun Microsystems. The amusing thing to me about this story is that it's such a convoluted name that their own potenti

Presumably you are referring to the former Sun Microsystems. The amusing thing to me about this story is that it's such a convoluted name that their own potential customers apparently can't remember it. And so, attempting to locate the computer company, they type the closest approximation they can manage, 'Sun Computer', into Google, which likely didn't rank as highly as yours precisely because that verbatim phrase, being technically incorrect, is unlikely to appear directly on their own web site or in anyone else's links to their web site. Names matter.

lutusp 13y ago
> Presumably you are referring to the former Sun Microsystems. Yes, that's one of the ironies -- Sun Microsystems argued that my use of the phrase "Sun Computer" directly interfered with their legitimate commercial interest. And, based on the search engine rankings, they were right.
- malandrew 13y ago
  What I don't get it why society thinks it's okay to encroach on personal freedoms when it hurts the economic interests of some other party. What is it about economic/commercial/financial interests that we collectively consider it more moral.
sliverstorm 13y ago
Names matter, and you often wind up stuck with the one you started with. There's tons of examples of companies that found themselves there, and that's where you start getting acronyms ala HP, AMD, TI, AT&T, etc. That said, names don't matter more than your product. Pick a good name, but remember to put your products first...
- dmdeller 13y ago
  > Names matter, and you often wind up stuck with the one you started with. Not just names--companies often wind up stuck with lots of things they started with, and there's no reason for it other than inertia. A well-known counter example, of course, being the company formerly known as Apple Computer, who changed their name after 30 years of being in business. Point being, Sun would not have been harmed by changing or dropping the 'microsystems' part of the name, which is a silly made-up word that didn't even represent their actual business (software, and physically large servers/workstations). It just never occurred to anyone, or the bureaucracy kept it from happening.
  - marcosdumay 13y ago
    It's not a made-up word. It was the name of the computers small enough to put in your room when Sun started. What makes your point much more evident, they should have changed it when everybody stopped using the word.
    - snogglethorpe 13y ago
      > What makes your point much more evident, they should have changed it when everybody stopped using the word. I suppose in the ruthless calculus of business, maybe you're correct, but there's a lot of things like nostalgia and familiarity etc. A familiar name is not, I think something to be trifled with, even if it "doesn't make sense" when viewed dispassionately... [My former company/subunit used to be called "XXX Electron Devices" which I thought was so neat and cool, unique even. It was an old company and I imagine the name dated from long ago when people weren't quite sure what to call that newfangled stuff... They later brought in the corporate image consultants who changed it to the more conventional but infinitely more boring "XXX Electronics" instead. Blah.]
      - PhantomGremlin 13y ago
        Then they changed to the more unpronounceable Renesas Electronics. Blah! :)
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      It is a made up word, though it seems quite likely to be a portmanteau of "microcomputer" and "systems", which, given that their initial product was workstations, isn't entirely unrelated to what they did, at least initially.
    - dmdeller 13y ago
      I believe you're thinking of the term 'microcomputer', which describes a computer the size of what we would now call a PC and is no longer in common use. I was unable to find the word 'microsystem' in any dictionary; if it was in common use as recently as 30 years ago, it seems unlikely that I would not be able to find any trace of it today. Therefore, I reiterate my assertion that 'microsystem' is a silly word that the people at Sun made up for their company name, until proven otherwise :) Wikipedia does have an entry for 'microsystem'[1], but it says the term is not generally used in the United States and does not seem to have anything to do with what we're talking about (much more recent category of technology than existed at the time that Sun was founded). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsystem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsystem

lutusp 13y ago

> Presumably you are referring to the former Sun Microsystems. Yes, that's one of the ironies -- Sun Microsystems argued that my use of the phrase "Sun Computer" directly interfered with their legitimate commercial interest. And, based on the search engine rankings, they were right.

malandrew 13y ago
What I don't get it why society thinks it's okay to encroach on personal freedoms when it hurts the economic interests of some other party. What is it about economic/commercial/financial interests that we collectively consider it more moral.

sliverstorm 13y ago

Names matter, and you often wind up stuck with the one you started with. There's tons of examples of companies that found themselves there, and that's where you start getting acronyms ala HP, AMD, TI, AT&T, etc. That said, names don't matter more than your product. Pick a good name, but remember to put your products first...

dmdeller 13y ago
> Names matter, and you often wind up stuck with the one you started with. Not just names--companies often wind up stuck with lots of things they started with, and there's no reason for it other than inertia. A well-known counter example, of course, being the company formerly known as Apple Computer, who changed their name after 30 years of being in business. Point being, Sun would not have been harmed by changing or dropping the 'microsystems' part of the name, which is a silly made-up word that didn't even represent their actual business (software, and physically large servers/workstations). It just never occurred to anyone, or the bureaucracy kept it from happening.
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  It's not a made-up word. It was the name of the computers small enough to put in your room when Sun started. What makes your point much more evident, they should have changed it when everybody stopped using the word.
  - snogglethorpe 13y ago
    > What makes your point much more evident, they should have changed it when everybody stopped using the word. I suppose in the ruthless calculus of business, maybe you're correct, but there's a lot of things like nostalgia and familiarity etc. A familiar name is not, I think something to be trifled with, even if it "doesn't make sense" when viewed dispassionately... [My former company/subunit used to be called "XXX Electron Devices" which I thought was so neat and cool, unique even. It was an old company and I imagine the name dated from long ago when people weren't quite sure what to call that newfangled stuff... They later brought in the corporate image consultants who changed it to the more conventional but infinitely more boring "XXX Electronics" instead. Blah.]
    - PhantomGremlin 13y ago
      Then they changed to the more unpronounceable Renesas Electronics. Blah! :)
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    It is a made up word, though it seems quite likely to be a portmanteau of "microcomputer" and "systems", which, given that their initial product was workstations, isn't entirely unrelated to what they did, at least initially.
  - dmdeller 13y ago
    I believe you're thinking of the term 'microcomputer', which describes a computer the size of what we would now call a PC and is no longer in common use. I was unable to find the word 'microsystem' in any dictionary; if it was in common use as recently as 30 years ago, it seems unlikely that I would not be able to find any trace of it today. Therefore, I reiterate my assertion that 'microsystem' is a silly word that the people at Sun made up for their company name, until proven otherwise :) Wikipedia does have an entry for 'microsystem'[1], but it says the term is not generally used in the United States and does not seem to have anything to do with what we're talking about (much more recent category of technology than existed at the time that Sun was founded). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsystem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsystem