Name the Next MicroStation!

 The issue of Naming is a toughie.....

Taken from the article linked above "Keep in mind the following rule of thumb about the name of the software: it has to be easy to understand, easy to pronounce, and easy to remember; it must be short and dynamic; must be usable for a number of years and must be legal. "

What name then shall we choose for the next MicroStation? The 2004 was related to a year, the XM was not related to much but there are suggestions and the V8i....well there were quite a few suggestions on the "i" suffix if you remember ... All of them perfectly good but the association to "AutoCAD 2000i " and all the car engines stuck a bit in our minds......maybe we should loose the V8 all together to get rid of that fuel consuming non-sustainable link once and for all? Are there any takers for V9? Or is that too related still?

Well we could go for the BE brand connection. AS BE stands for Bentley Empowered(does anyone remember that?) we could argue for a BE related name. There are at least 43 other meanings for BE of course...Anyone keen on BE1?

If you look at some competitors then - Autodesk go for the year numbering now even though the year of the release is one year before the number(2011 is out there already in 2010) . Graphisoft are strictly into numbering - now 13.

Talking Autodeskian the new MicroStation if released 2012 would be called 2013 but if we stay clear of the stupidity let us call it the same year - MicroStation 2012!

Talking Graphisoftian the new MicroStation would be called, if I have counted correctly, MicroStation 16!

The perhaps last resort is the fantasy solution.  For fun take a look at this name generator ! Perhaps one of those names are not the ideal name for the next generation "Stationists" but you never know -  Avatar was after all a success! Have fun!