Adventures In Product Renaming

Back in March, Adobe was making lots of noise about a new piece of technology they were pushing then called Apollo. To avoid drowning you in buzzwords: Apollo lets you create desktop apps using web programming. Kind of neat.

But Apollo was always just a code name, and we were threatened told that the project would be renamed sometime later.

Today, Adobe announced the official name: AIR.

This is problematic for handful of reasons.

One: "AIR" is a fairly generic word. It's the stuff we breathe. It's a quality or manner. It can be a musical composition. It's also a terribly popular French electronic music act. Best of luck to Adobe as they try to make page 1 on Google.

Two: Despite the acronym expanding to "Adobe Integrated Runtime", it is being referred to repeated on the web page as "Adobe® AIR™". That's right: Adobe Adobe Integrated Runtime. Rolls off the tongue as easily as automated teller machine machine.

Three: I would argue calling it a runtime. Perhaps a runtime enviroment, like Java. But this is a geek quibble.

Finally: You would think "Adobe AIR" was a unique name. It's not.

A golf clap for the renaming team. Brav-o.