Elastic What: Stretching Understanding to the Snapping Point

April 10, 2015

I love Amazon. I love Elastic as a name for search. I hate confusion. Elasticsearch is now “Elastic.” I get it. But after I read “Amazon Launches New File Storage Service For EC2”, there may be some confusion between Amazon’s use of Elastic, various Amazon “elastic” services, and search. Is Amazon going to embrace the word “elastic” to describe its information retrieval system. Will this cause some confusion with the open source search vendor Elastic? I find it interesting that name confusion is an ever present issue in search. I have mentioned what happens when a company loses control of its name. Examples range from Thunderstone (a maker of search and search appliances) and the consumer software with the same name. Smartlogic (indexing software) is now facing encroachment from Smartlogic.io (consulting services). Brainware, now owned by Lexmark, lost control of its brand when distasteful videos appeared with the label Brainware. The brand was blasted with nasty bits. Where is the search oriented Brainware now? Retired I believe just as I am.

Little wonder some people have difficulty figuring out which vendor offers what software. Stretch your mind around the challenge of explaining that you want the Amazon elastic and the Elastic elastic. Vendors seem to operate without regard to the need to reduce signal mixing.

Stephen E Arnold, April 10, 2015

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