| A Rose by any other
Name As the tablet neared completion and IBM was preparing to announce it to the press, a battle was still going on over Wainwright's suggested name. The pen-computing group wanted to call it ThinkPad. It felt that it was crucial for such a personal product to be named something that would not make consumers feel as if they had to graduate from MIT in order to use it. Debi Dell, who was a product manager in the group, recalls: "IBM's corporate naming committee hated 'ThinkPad.' First, they were upset that the computer didn't have a number. How could an IBM computer not have a number? Then, since IBM sold so many products overseas, they were worried because ThinkPad wouldn't translate easily into foreign languages." When Vieth announced the product in the spring of 1992, she ignored the corporate objections and simply referred to the tablet as the ThinkPad. "The press loved it," says Dell. "And as soon as 'ThinkPad' caught on with people, the naysayers changed their tune." |
But the tablet found few buyers. As Paul Carroll, author of Big Blues: The Unmaking of
IBM (Crown Publishers Inc., 1993), observes, the market had shifted again and become
"more focused on helping people communicate while on the move, rather than
compute." It so happened that IBM had that type of notebook computer under development. In fact, the company was just six months away from releasing it. But in early 1992, this computer also didn't have a name. Two years before the tablet ThinkPad was announced, Cannavino became convinced that future mobile machines should be developed at the IBM design center in Yamato, Japan. The Japanese were more experienced with consumer electronics than the Americans, and Cannavino felt their culture provided them with an advantage that could not be duplicated in the United States. Cannavino explains: "In Japan, you'll find that competitors share more technical information among themselves than departments do in a [U.S.] company. The Japanese understand that a healthy industry is good for everyone. We haven't quite learned that lesson over here." |
