Before a new product comes to market, countless hours and sometimes millions of dollars are spent creating a marketing plan. And among the most important parts of that process? Picking a name. It should be simple. Descriptive. Catchy. Memorable. Unique. A good technology product name should be many things. Sometimes the vendors get it right. And sometimes, well, sometimes we get the unfortunate product names in this slideshow.

1. Six unfortunate tech product
names
Before a new product comes to market,
countless hours and sometimes millions
of dollars are spent creating a marketing
plan. And among the most important
parts of that process? Picking a name.
It should be simple. Descriptive. Catchy.
Memorable. Unique. A good technology
product name should be many things.
Sometimes the vendors get it right.
And sometimes, well, sometimes we get
the unfortunate product names in this
slideshow. Image courtesy of imagerymajestic at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
By Jeff Jedras

2. Cius
Cisco Systems
As an enterprise networking vendor, Cisco
tends to be rather conservative with its
product name choices.
Cisco Unified Operations Manager may not be
sexy, but you know what it does. Well, you
network engineers do anyway, and that’s
what’s important.
They tried to break out of that box with the
Cisco Cius, their now discontinued Android-
based collaboration tablet. It has video calling
– see us – get it? Yeah, of course you do.
You don’t see it anymore though.

3. iYiYi Stereo System
Tivoli Audio
Isee that every iCompany feels the
need to iMimic Apple and put iBefore
their product names.
It’s annoying, sure. But at least many of
them are iPod or iPad-related
accessories, allowing the consumer to
more easily identify supported
peripherals. (Well, at least until Apple
changes the ports again).
But this stereo with iPod docking station from Tivoli Audio takes it to iFar. The
iYiYi, really? Does it only play salsa music?
iYiYi really don’t like this product name.

4. iBeat Blaxx
TrekStor
While some things may get lost in translation,
when the marketing folks over at German vendor
TrekStor were expanding their iBeat line of MP3
players, and they decided to introduce a black
model, you’d think someone would have put the
two together in English and said hey, perhaps we
should modify our naming regime, as maybe “iBeat
Blaxx” isn’t the best name for our product.
Once someone pointed it out to them, they did
quickly rename it the TrekStor Blaxx and apologize.
They now focus on non-racist e-book readers.

5. iaPeel printable skins
iaPeel
The last in our trio of iAnnoying products, the
iaPeel is actually a pretty cool product. Basically, it
allows you to design and create your own custom
skin for your smartphone, tablet, laptop or other
mobile device using your inkjet printer.
That name, though. Really punny, guys.
Yes, it goes on your iPhone. Yes, it peels off your
device easily. And yes, it offers eye appeal for your
mobile device.
Yes, you could go there if you wanted to. But did
you really need to?

6. Eee PC
Asus
Asus makes some pretty cool products. And,
on the plus side, it’s not called the iPC, and
iThank them for that. But the Eee PC isn’t too
much better.
I have to wonder, why three Es? Why not the
Eeee PC? I mean, in for a penny, in for a
pound, right? Or why not just two, the Ee
PC?
OK, now that I see Ee PC written out, I see
that’s just crazy. Eee is clearly just the right
number of Es, as I’m sure extensive market
research confirmed.
Well done, Asus.

7. The GIMP
The open-source community
Just to show it’s not just big vendors that can
choose unfortunate or annoying product names,
we close with one from the open-source software
community: The GIMP.
As you can guess by the caps, this is an acronym.
The name of this free, open-source photo editing
software stands for GNU Image Manipulation
Program.
Perhaps they’re just preparing for the day when
computers respond to voice command, and they
can launch the program by saying “Bring in The
GIMP!” Sadly, if it doesn’t happen soon no one will
get the Pulp Fiction reference.