Who Came Up with That? The Story Behind Some Black Box Product Names – Part 2

Who Came Up with That? The Story Behind Some Black Box Product Names – Part 2

Using a color when naming a product or business isn't anything new. If you did not notice, we are called Black Box.

The names of colors are often used when naming products or businesses because they can evoke a reaction that seems to be universal. "As different societies developed names for colors, across the globe, isolated cultures went about naming the colors, but weirdly, they all generally did it in the same order. Called the hierarchy of color names, the order was generally (with a few exceptions): black, white, red, green, yellow and blue with others like brown, purple and pink coming at various times afterward."¹

When you think about Emerald, what comes to mind? A pretty green gemstone, a square-cut diamond or that lovely, lush green island in the North Atlantic? Most likely. What about our newest KVM system? Chances are that unless you are a complete Black Box techie, it didn't. That's fine. We didn't name our 4K KVM over IP system Emerald™ trying to compete with all the normal reactions someone has when they think about that beautiful shade of green.

The real reason we call our new KVM system Emerald is that it was developed by our world-class team in Limerick, Ireland. It was one of our top-secret projects where the project's codename simply stuck. Before knowing this backstory, one of our sales engineers thought that Emerald got its name because "it would leave the competition green with envy." While incorrect, we hope his assumption comes true because of Emerald's advanced features.

What makes Emerald so groundbreaking is that it is the first KVM platform to deliver pixel-perfect HD or 4K video over an IP network, a proprietary direct connection or both. It supports any combination and number of physical and virtual desktops and servers with true USB emulation. 

So now that you learned a little about our Emerald system, do you want to learn about Bluetooth? Well, you opened the blog and read to this point, so of course you do.

The name Bluetooth has its roots back in the 10th century. There was a king by the name of Harald Gormsson who was known for uniting parts of Denmark and Norway into one country as well as converting the Danes to Christianity. He had a dead tooth that was a dark blue color, hence the moniker "Bluetooth." The Bluetooth logo is actually the Scandinavian runes for Harald Gormsson's initials. But how in the world did this "bluetoothed uniter" become associated with tech that we quite frankly can't live without nowadays?

In 1996, several communications companies were developing an industry-wide standard for wireless communication and connectivity. Enter Jim Kardach. He was an Intel engineer working on the wireless tech. "At the time, Kardach had been reading a book about Vikings that featured the reign of Harald, whom he viewed as an ideal symbol for bringing competing parties together, as he explained:

Bluetooth was borrowed from the 10th-century, second king of Denmark, King Harald Bluetooth; who was famous for uniting Scandinavia just as we intended to unite the PC and cellular industries with a short-range wireless link."²

And now every time you use Bluetooth to connect your phone to your car or wireless speaker, you will think of some 10th-century king's famous dental problem. You are quite welcome.

Join us next week when we discuss the biggest company in the world.

Learn more about Emerald, and read the Emerald solutions brochure.

1. GIZMODO - https://gizmodo.com/how-the-colors-got-their-names-1510522700
2. PC World - https://www.pcworld.com/article/2061288/so-thats-why-its-called-bluetooth-and-other-surprising-tech-name-origins.html