Paul Beverley
I agree that it is a strange title for an Archive article, but then "Phoebe 2100" is a strange name for a computer. Those of you who have not been to Wakefield, and don't have access to the internet, may well be thinking, "What is he on about?"
Believe it or not, Phoebe 2100 is Acorn's choice of name for their latest and greatest computer. Let me pause here for you to let that sink in. Before you read on, try to think for yourself what the implications of choosing a name like that might be.
The first and, for me, the worst implication is to think what the (non-Acorn) computer press will make of it. We have complained for years that the likes of David Hewson and Jack Schofield don't take Acorn seriously, and don't bother to mention Acorn - not even when they make significant steps forward in computing terms.
It was Hewson, I think, who referred to us as "Acorn-owning dorks", and said we were more mouthy than, was it (no it wasn't, but you get the idea) Wakefield Town supporters - what will he make of Phoebe 2100? You can almost hear those journalistic cogs whirring... Phoebe... Freebee... Feeble... Phoeble - yes, that's it, Headline: "Acorn's new Phoeble computer".
OK, I'm overstating the case, but what are journalists, who are looking for something interesting to write about, going to find to say about Phoebe? The computer itself is hardly comparable, in terms of its "leap-forward-ness", to an Archimedes or a RiscPC, so this is one occasion where I hope that the general computer press will ignore Acorn's press releases rather than using this as an occasion to pillory our favourite computer company.
If they had heard Phoebe spoken about, but not seen it written down, would your average computer user be able to spell it? Come to think of it, how many of those of you who hadn't heard about Phoebe until you read this article know how P-h-o-e-b-e should be pronounced? Mind you, you've probably already guessed from the play on names I did above.
I've just got back from Acorn Expo in Holland, where I�asked some of the Dutch Acorn dealers about the name. They reckoned that, to a Dutchman, it might seem to be pronounced something like "Poober".
One other factor, in my view, is the relationship with the Acorn Clan. It is they (we) who were given the opportunity to suggest possible names for Acorn's new flagship. I'm sure that dozens (hundreds?) of names were suggested, but then what happened? They ignored them, and went for the name Phoebe instead.
Phoebe was the in-house project�name for the hardware development. The software project name was Ursula - I�gather she is Phoebe's twin sister in the American soap-comedy called "Friends" - so I suppose we should be thankful they didn't call it Ursula 2100!
My point is, I don't think that choosing the name "Phoebe" will have done anything to improve Acorn's relationship with the Clan. After all, it's the Clan members who are going to be the bulk of at least the initial purchasers of Phoebes (Phoebi?).
Chris Cox did say that they called in a "naming consultant", but that this gentleman was asking for £100,000 to come up with a suitable name. So I�suppose we can at least say that they saved a bit of money by deciding in-house.
I asked one of the Acorn engineers (who, for his career's sake, shall remain nameless) why they chose the name. His reply was, "Well, it was just that we had all got rather attached to the name, having been involved in the development of 'Phoebe'. It's a distinctive name, so we decided to stick with it."
Maybe there's more to it than this engineer thought, and maybe Acorn have thought about the marketing implications, but to an outsider, it sounds as if we're back to the "good old days" of Acorn having superb technology but failing to do it justice by having very poor marketing skills.
So does Phoebe actually mean anything? Well, "RiscPC" clearly meant something - it was a RISC-based machine that could also be a PC if you wanted to run PC software. What of Phoebe?
Well, I looked it up and, apparently, the name Phoebe means "The Shining One", and Phoebe, in classical mythology, was one of the names of the goddess of the moon. - I just thought you'd like to know that!
I don't often get accused of being negative, more often of wearing rose-tinted glasses when it comes to commentating on the Acorn world. True, I make the most of it when the Acorn shares (and the Archive subscriptions) are on the up and up (as they are now - the subscriptions, I mean, not the shares - they are almost as low as they were before the first Oracle rumour in October '95!), but go suddenly quiet when they are dropping. Even so, I can find little to be positive about this gaff on Acorn's part. OK, I'll try.
Maybe Acorn will decide that, as "Archimedes A310" was a bit of a mouthful, and we talked about the "A310", perhaps we could refer to it as the "P2100"? I�mean, I'm going to find it difficult to take it seriously if I have to write things like, "This excellent new program makes very good use of some of Phoebe's innovative hardware and software features, but therefore won't run on RiscPCs or earlier machines, but only on Phoebes."
One possible positive that I've just thought of is that maybe Acorn are hoping to sell Phoebe into the American market and, because of the huge success of�"Friends" over there, they think "Phoebes" will sell�like hot cakes... You don't think so? Well, no, you're probably right.
As Gabriel Swords points out in his Show Report, can you imagine what it will feel like when someone asks you what kind of computer you're using, and you have to answer, "Oh, it's a Phoebe."!
Please, Mr Cox, Sir, please recant! We won't hold it against you, honest. That wasn't the 'launch', anyway, was it? It was just a preview, and we can all agree together that it was just a bit of a joke on your part - you were winding us all up, right? Please don't make me tell my friends I've got a Phoebe!
Author: Paul Beverley
Published: Archive 11.10, July 1998.
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