Wednesday, September 12, 2007

A rose by another name

Some years ago, in the midst of a corporate reshuffling, the arm of Kodak that manufactured machines Kodak would sell or lease to customers (copiers, I think, but maybe film processors, too) was renamed the United States Equipment Division. Everything went as planned, with new stationery, new marketing brochures, and a new sign for the building all ready for the day when the new name would take effect. On that day, the sign out front was undraped, and there it was, in all its glory: USED.

That may have been the shortest-lived corporate identity project in history, as the name change was rescinded almost immediately.

What brought this to mind was the automatic software update from Microsoft this morning. I don't know why I never noticed this before, but the periodic update was for the Malicious Software Removal Tool. Hmm. MSRT. MS = Malicious Software? MS = Microsoft?

No comment.

1 comment:

Lisa S. said...

My father worked at Kodak for almost 40 years. I can only laugh at this story because it just sounds so typical of the anecdotes he'd bring home with him!