Name Awards Blog

 

When Burroughs Corporation merged with Sperry Univac Corporation, to create a new company in one of the most complicated computer mergers of all time, a new name was sought so that neither group (or their customers) would feel they had been subsumed. Instead they came up with this new name and both lost their stature and identity. Of course, they made it all red to go out and stand up to "Big Blue", instead of which today they are a shell of their former selves.

We have always been disappointed with this name, starting with the fact that Sperry's lawyers had made it clear to all management and marketeers way before this that they wanted nothing else to do with "Uni" names. Having formerly been called Univac, they had Uni-this and Uni-that everywhere they turned. Back in the late 70's they were already saying it was a crowded technology naming space.

Did they really need to describe their merger action, which would soon be forgotten? Did their customers really care about their internal organization? Couldn't it have been a bit more positive about what they would do for their users, who were mostly technically astute and could easily figure out that these respective computer architectures were wildly different?

 

Motto: Get professional help in studying your brand values first - and focus on what you do for the customer, not what you do for yourself.