[hobbit] "Hobbit" name legal stuff; slight name change willhappen

[Asif Iqbal]

On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 9:52 PM, Everett, Vernon
<Vernon.Everett at woodside.com.au> wrote:
> Hi all
>
> If I could add my 0.02 worth of local currency, how about a complete break
> from Hobbit and/or fantasy creatures.
>
> As a consultant, Hobbit is one of the products I always try and push with
> clients.
> I do the install, provide support and write additional monitoring scripts
> where they are required.
>
> However, one issue I have encountered, is the difficulty I have in getting
> CIOs and other senior members of management to take a product called Hobbit
> seriously.
> "What's in a name?" you say, and I agree with you, but we are talking PHBs

I bet when they don't laugh when the name of an OS is called "windows". But if
another OS comes as "Doors" they will laugh, I bet. Do you still value
their opinion?

That would be the "worst" reason to change a name in my opinion

> here.
> For some reason, Patrol, Nagios, MSM, Zenoss, and all the other names appear
> to "inspire confidence".
> Hobbit? Some people just refuse to take it seriously.
> Maybe they associate Hobbits with childrens fantasy, I don't know, but I
> have had push-back from at least 2 major clients based purely on the name.
> I am talking about 2 corporate clients that had no monitoring, and wanted to
> look at monitoring products, but refused to look at Hobbit because of the
> name.

Well they should not use Hobbit then. Better that way I think

> It wasn't an aversion to open source, because Nagios was on the table, but
> suggest Hobbit, and PHBs snigger, and ask if it's a fantasy product, or has
> hairy feet, or also comes up short, or some equally silly comment.
>
> I know this is completely unjustified, because I know Hobbit is a superior
> product, but when dealing with corporates, if the PHBs don't like it, you
> can forget it.
>
> I have no name suggestions at this time, but I will give it some thought.
> Hobbitmon, it not bad, but I think PHB's might be more receptive to HMON.
>
> Cheers
>       Vernon
>
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-- 
Asif Iqbal
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