Name Awards

What’s in a Taiwanese Name?

The November 12th issue of Business Week has a good article titled “What’s in a Name? Fatter Profits” wherein they discuss the move to branded lines of computer and tech products for Taiwan’s old line companies now that they are under such price siege in the OEM market from mainland China. This comes as no surprise. But if they are going to use their own brands on computers, then only Acer has got it right, even if they re-invent their logo and positioning every few years. (I hope their switch to a lower case logo doesn’t have the same negative effect it has had on other companies like SGI).

In the article, HTC are very proud of their initials.. wonder if anyone has told them they are not as famous as IBM? Nor do they have the same marketing budget. And there is another HTC (or more). The California one is recovering from a big management scandal which makes some of us very leery of any associations with those initials – that stand for nothing we know.

But the real disaster is Asustek… this is how Business Week spells it (and they are of the highest editorial repute). But the trademark is actually on the name Asus and their website is at Asus.com and not at any of the Asustek domains. And they claim their company name is ASUSTek Computer Inc. All these inconsistencies do not matter much in the OEM space but are tragic in building a consumer brand. Especially when the name is unpronounceable and so awkward to start with.. looks like a typo for Aussie Tech.. now there is a name with more hop in it.

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