Question About Branding

[rorrock]

Well here goes my first question.. I have a product range which I have been calling the Managed Business Appliance range.
They are the
eProtect & eProtect MBX (mini business exchange)
eOffice & eOffice SBX (Small Business Exchange)
and eUnity (eOffice SBX with VOIP PABX integrated).

The idea being these are one stop units to provide business with a managed platform for file and print sharing, email and shared calender, contacts, tasks, etc.

My worry is that the terminology is wrong, that Managed Business Appliance will not attract people..

Rob

[craiglongmuir.com]

appliance makes me think 'fridge'

[gossipism]

yup id agree.

i would generally stick to the easier "terms" that are getting bandied around these days

"hosted" "virtual" "cloud" "online" all seem to do well. otherwise if your keen on the name, use it, but add a little tag at the end.
"your server in the cloud"
"SaaS - Server as a Service"
"Virtual Small Business Server"
"Online Small Business Server"

etc
etc

just some ideas

[rorrock]

Great feedback so far...
The original reason I picked Appliance was its designed to be like a fridge in some ways. We come in and install it and it works, we also monitor it so we know if something goes wrong and can fix it pro-actively.

Rob

[gossipism]

ah, this is actual hardware.

my bad, i thought you were providing hosted services.

whats wrong with just using "server" instead of appliance?

[BranchingOut]

Hi Rob,

As a completely non techie person, my gut feeling is that you would have to spend a lot of time explaining these to me, and if I visited your website I would have to read a lot to know what it meant.

I agree, I think that you should use the buzz words were possible, because non techie people are very media indoctrinated on techie things..

Also, to me "managed" means cloud - not to look after (again media has indoctrinated me to think this way ).

Buzz words would also help your SEO, cause that's what would be searched.

Cheers,
Sam

[rorrock]

So how about "IT in a Box".. or ZEITB "Zero Effort IT in a Box"
Which in a way is what it is..

Now i need to find how best to put forward the VOIP trunking products including the free 1300 number..

Rob

[MsLilyPonds]

Better to just be clear.... The other issue I see for you is that keywords like server and cloud are impossible to rank for - and appliance you'll have an impossible time with - it's gonig to cost you a FORTUNE in SEO and you're going to get tons of wasted traffic that you'll have to pay for.

Start with the keyword. You do IT stuff - find out what people google when they are looking for your service and start tehre.

[gossipism]

IT in a Box sounds cool, though im sure ive heard of it being dropped before.

All in One?

Server Made Easy?

IT Made Easy?

SMBIT?

just ranting..

[IronMaiden]

If you're aiming at the non IT business person then you'll need to simplify what you say you do. I had a look at your website, and can't quite figure out how you can solve the problems I have and whether you can do it for a micro business (1-3 people) at an affordable rate. Your site says:

We have experience in an extremely wide variety of products and systems.
Including:
•Windows Server 2003,2008
•Exchange 2003,2007,2010
•SQL
•VMWARE Virtulisation
•UNIX
•Backup Systems (CommVault, BackupExec and Tivolli to name a few)
•Switches (Cisco, HP, Netgear and many others)
•Routing (Cisco, 3Com, Juniper)
•Firewalls of All Kinds
•Internet
•Web Hosting

But what does this mean to the non IT layperson?? I get the last 3 but the rest dont tell me what they do to solve my issues. I need someone who can set up file sharing so the welder in the workshop can see what jobs to do, an easy to use customer database which ties in with Outlook so I can follow up leads, see where jobs are up to and what's ready to be shipped out, etc. How will any of these integrate with my existing Outlook and MYOB, etc.