Efinity No More – SMT Announces The All New Omnis Systems Brand

January 26, 2008 - No matter what the product, having two different brands within one market is not usually a good idea. When the Efinity server was first developed, SMT did not realise that the name sounded bad in other European languages. SMT’s Italian distributor immediately had to recommend a change of name for that market as Efinity sounds “gay” to the Italian ear, which is not a good idea in such a macho country. So Efinity is now being completely re-branded and revamped as Omnis Systems Server or Omnis (http://www.omnisserver.com) for short, with the release of the latest version of the operating system and a completely new hardware platform.

SMT (http://www.smtnet.co.uk) are not the only company in the World to make this error. Hyundai did not know that in Swedish the name sounds extremely similar to dog “manure”.

In the eighties, General Motors did not think about the consequences of not considering the meaning of the brand name of their car, Nova, in Spanish countries where the name can be interpreted as "no va," which means "it does not work." That is why they later called it the Corsa in Europe.

In 1988, the General Electric Company (GEC) and Plessey combined to create a new telecommunications giant. A brand name was desired that would evoked technology and innovation, so they chose GPT for GEC-Plessey Telecommunications. Not a very innovative name, not exactly suggestive of technology - and a total disaster in France. GPT is pronounced in French as “J’ai pété” or “I've farted”.

In the late '70s, the American computer company Wang was puzzled why its British branch refused to use its latest motto "Wang Cares" (I won’t explain further).

So in order to avoid the same problem with Efinity, the server range is being re-branded as Omnis, but this is not just a simple name change; this is a complete redefinition of the product range with improved hardware platforms and the addition of new features to make the system far more valuable to businesses of all sizes.

One of the key factors is that the systems are now going to be produced in a dedicated facility in Germany, and shipped directly to the UK as finished items. This will improve the delivery times significantly, allowing for faster turn around and improved customer responsiveness.

One of the key drivers for the re-branding is to unify the product range across Europe, so that instead of having two products, one in the UK and a different one in the rest of Europe, there will now be a single product for the entire world.

Chris Ball, Managing Director of SMT commented, “This move will not only improve the product in terms of price performance, but also allow it to benefit from increased economies of scale and in time greater brand awareness.”

He went on to add, “The result for our customers is higher performance at a better price, with more features to boot.”