A pretty funny article appeared in recent days on how not to name your company. The points are valid, and I’m really glad I decided against naming the company Pentaho.

However, a lot of people think Vagueware Ltd is a stupid name for a software company. So, time for some background.

First of all, it’s an inside joke to developers. Everybody has heard of vapourware and assumes it’s the same thing. It’s a kind of a play on that, because I am known for coming up with large numbers of ideas, selling everybody on them, and never getting around to shipping code. Starting my own business was kind of an anti-procrastination measure.

It was also meant to mean something else once before - originally vagueware.com was a wiki where anybody could put up business ideas. In the future, I still want to do that here, but for products/services already shipped. The idea is to try and get people who have fuzzy concepts of what they see software doing, finding a way of being able to actually get that vision turned into reality.

But mainly, it just sounds kinda good. Most of my current client base think I’m being weird though, and as a marketing exercise it sucks. Works with developers who think I’m being ironic, badly with people who think I’m being serious. Like, yeah, I’m such a crappy developer I actually put it in my business name as a warning… duuuhhhh….

However, the company name won’t be seen much. That’s because I’m planning on 3-4 software product launches in coming months that will all have their own names, their own domains, their own identities. When you dig around, you’ll find out they are trading names for Vagueware Ltd, but other than that, you’ll think you’re dealing with [Top Secret Product Name Here].com and won’t know anything about Vagueware. That means I get a name that makes me smile, makes cool people laugh a little when they hear it, and the customers don’t get freaked out generally.

In the next couple of weeks a project I’ve been working on seperately will be announced here - it’s not a Vagueware project, but I own 50% of it - and the story behind that name is great. I’ll share it when we announce it. Real Soon Now.