Information Letter 2     Information Letter 3

What to Name the Company

Talk about an identity crisis! Virtually every name we came up with for the company was either considered harmful by the founders, or considered already taken by the California Secretary of State. Our numerous attempts to find a name didn't deter us from making ever more imaginative suggestions. First, a passel of names proposed by Duff Kurland.

To: WALKER
DUFF (02/26-11:15)

“Integrity Software” sounds good…. I did have a couple of other ideas, however (and they didn't even involve puns!)….

Desktop Software        Valu-Ware
Desktop Solutions       Future-Ware

I kind of like “Desktop Software”, but can't help wondering where it will go: …“Bottom Left Drawer Software”…“Shoebox Software”…“Breast Pocket Software”…“Shoestring Software”…(Hmmmm…). Other suggestions (some in jest):

Office Solutions     Execu-Ware     Out-of-Control Data Corp. 
Titanic Software     Business Ware  MIS Information Systems 
Good OfficeKeeping   Manage-Ware    Ethical Ripoffs, Inc. 
Dud & Brannstreet    Mr. Softee     Software Breakthroughs 
Office Technology    Upper-Ware     Management Technology 
Conceptual Elegance  Compu-Freaks   Smelly Rand
Other names proposed for the company with various degrees of seriousness included:
Command Technologies       Command Line Technology
RHT, Inc.                  Target Software
Insight Automation, Ltd.   Coders Of the Lost Spark
Autodesk, Inc.
Of these names, “Desktop Solutions” was initially chosen. We showed AutoCAD and the Autodesk prototype at the West Coast Computer Faire in 1982 under this name, and it appeared on the first brochures we ever printed. It was rejected by the Secretary of State, as were “Target Software” and “Insight Automation”. By the way, “RHT” stood for “Red Hot Techies”.
This drawing is another converted from M9900 INTERACT to AutoCAD-80 and thence to AutoCAD-86 by DXF. We showed it at COMDEX in 1982 and used it on the sample drawings disc for the first AutoCAD release.

AutoCAD Floor plan drawing

Information Letter 2     Information Letter 3