We’re launching a new product this week. This Thursday morning to be exact.
You may know that Elcom, where I work, is a web company that builds products for medium to large companies. We do intranets, extranets, portals, web sites, etc. Plus we do a fair bit of customisation.
Over the last few months we’ve been turning things around a little and ‘productizing’ our custom projects into products in their own right.
TrainingManager.NET is one such product.
Although it’s already live in two reasonably large companies, we’re only now doing the official launch. It’s a breakfast this Thursday and I hear the food is going to be good!
There’s a press release here if you’re interested in the marketing spin :-)
Here’s the details if you are interested in coming along (free to attend):
- Date: Thursday 29 May 2008
- Time: 8:00am – 10:00am
- Location: Hamilton Parkes Room, NSW Trade and Investment Centre, Level 47, MLC Centre, 19 Martin Place, Sydney, NSW
- Register here
It’s got a little bit of press (here, here and here), but the main thing I like is that it is running on .NET 3.5 – yay for that! Of course you shouldn’t just consider a product based on the underlying technology – that’d be a feature not a benefit right?
So, what does TrainingManager do? Here’s an description (complete with terms like ‘cutting edge’ ;-)). We’ll have some nicer collateral coming in the next few weeks with cool screens shots, a micro site, etc.
Basically – as the name suggests – it allows a company to manage all the training for its staff and customers. It covers training pathways, competencies, face-to-face training, training events, testing & verification, plus a whole bunch of other goodies. If this is of interest let me know and I’ll post a few more details (or contact me and we can chat).
BTW we’re thinking of re-branding the product with a cool, hip, sexy name. Angus suggested ‘Mustang’. Why? No particular reason – it just sounds cool. Elcom Mustang. Hmmmmm I think I like it.
I’m open to suggestions…
"No particular reason"?! <grumble>
Actually it makes perfect sense if the product is positioned in such a way as to need that name … see Igor for more …
http://igorinternational.com
Why?!? Well, you can always go the MS route and call it "Elcom TrainingManager.Net for Windows Enterprise Business Edition"
The initial name acronyms out as "ET".
Downside with choosing Mustang is that you may be positioning for infringement but who knows…Igor does have a point though: "The best product and company names require the least advertising. They are advertisements."
While the Elcom TrainingManager.Net tells me a few things (it’s come Elcom, it’s written in DotNet and it’s a training manager) – it also immediately makes me think "hmmm….what other training managers are available in DotNet" – on the other end, something like "Excelsior" (don’t use that – explained below) may bring a whole bunch of other thoughts to the table but once know, it may make that wonderful leap so that when I think of Excelsior.com I immediately think of an education or training system.
(here’s an interesting thing that just happened – I was thinking of a product name to use to describe the TrainingManager and said Excelsior – if you go to Excelsior.com, it’s an EDUCATION center – go figure <g>)
But I would still rather be able to say "i’m using Basecamp" instead of "AKSEL’s Project Management Developer Studio". Fewer words – easier to tweet with!