Xohm is coming… um, ok?

Xohm is Coming

The Internet is on the verge of another revolution. Coming in Spring of 2008, Xohm promises to bring fast, secure and smart wireless access to cities, enabling the possibility of a whole new range of high-bandwidth applications and uses. Xohm also will expand the Internet experience by partnering with the best companies in the industry to enable a new class of devices with Internet capabilities. Beyond just laptops, the vision of Xohm is to empower PMPs, video cameras, MP3s and more with Internet access. [Xohm]

Sprint officially announced Xohm as the brand for their pending WiMax service and I’m left feeling like they got taken by their brand guys.

WiMax — It’s all about the X factor!! Yeah, that’s it and if we make it phonetic it’s going to be all web 2.0-like and even though it looks more like Ohm than Zoom, we’ll call it Zoom for that extra hip flavor.

Sprint uses the expression SprintSpeed today which seems like it would have been the most obvious choice since WiMax is a 4G data connection (read speed) than anything else. Sure you can do VOIP, but that’s a data service too. Why complicate things with another brand which actually pushes the Sprint name as a tag (WiMAX from Sprint) rather than part of the branded service? I guess perhaps their agency would not have made that much money on that deal…

SprintSpeed works for me. I know who it’s from (where I can buy it) and I know what it means (fast data). I don’t really even need to know it’s WiMAX! Most consumers will buy direct from Sprint anyway while the more advanced elite users will bring their own WiMAX devices to the network. To this second set, the network more utility, than branded service… Maybe I’m crazy here, but simple works the name does not

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7 Replies to “Xohm is coming… um, ok?”

  1. People said the same about Wii and XO and once they are out, they turn out to be a great name. It’s all about being short and using interesting combination of charachters that make the solution easilly identifiable.

  2. Google, Yahoo, Vonage..
    The list goes on.

    If you wish to establish a market leading position
    for a new technology, you don’t brand it by the category
    or a descriptive term like Speed. You can’t own that for very long
    or very well.

    WiMax is a category. Xohm will be the first to stake out a trademark in the
    category. If the service works as promised, people will start to think
    of Xohm as Wimax.

    Much like people think of “Googling” instead of “Searching” on the internet
    now

    Which is why all the other search engines are looking up (Way Up) at Google.
    Who did it better and turned it’s brand from a Proper Noun to a Verb with it’s success.

    Once you learn how to pronounce Xohm, the learning curve is over and you never will forget it. If it’s as impressive as promised, they will be in a strong
    position to hold market share when eventually all the competitors
    catch up.

  3. Absolutely agree with above posts. Branding is not so much informative or pragmatic as it catching and elusive. Examples: “Skype”, “Google”, “Oracle”, “Sprint”. “IBM” and “Microsoft” are exceptions.

  4. though those examples are all from companies that have no prior existence. This is Sprint. They’ve existed for several decades and Xohm is a service from them…

  5. Explanation I read for the Xohm brand was that since it would be sold in Sprint stores with its own price point and approach (all devices/open access, NO equipment subsidy etc), it needed its own brand to differentiate it from Sprint CDMA cellular voice/data offerings.

    I suppose its intended to manage customer expectations — to make clear how WiMax is different from CDMA. Could also extend life of EVDO as Xohm wont be available nationwide immediately.

  6. Pingback: Xohm goes Clear

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