Is it just me, or are all the "business object" named things starting to become confusing? Here's the ones I can count:

• The original COM-based iBO
• iBO for .NET
• The core Business Objects which make up iMIS
• Business Object Builder, Business Object Architect, Business Object Designer, or whatever else it becomes
• Stephen Moseley's iBO Wrapper
• The Active Matter iBO Wrapper
• Any business objects which we create in the future for interacting with iMIS. When you have some for iMIS and some not, it's natural to describe the ones for iMIS as "the iMIS business objects".
• Business Objects, the company who bought Crystal Reports. (Now themselves owned by SAP)
• Sony's robotic dog

I know COM iBO is on its way to a well-deserved oblivion, but it will still be around to talk about for quite a while. Some of the others aren't serious problems. It mostly comes down to distinguishing COM iBO from iBO-for-.NET from the core business objects. These are at least manageable in print if you're consistent (COM iBO, iBO for .NET, Core BOs), but try talking about them over the phone -- you have to over-specify every time, which gets old for both the speaker and the listeners.

Has anyone thought about a better naming convention? I recognize that they are all to varying degrees "business objects", and that legal and marketing won't be happy unless the brand name is in there. No perfect solution, I'm sure. The confusion seems to come up every time any two iBO-like components are mentioned in the same breath.

How about calling one or the other part the "iMIS API"? I know one of the help files for COM-iBO is named iBO_API.chm, so maybe that's a natural name to use. It may also help to refer to the core business objects as simply "iMIS Core", with the optional subtext for the geeks that the core consists of business objects (little b, little o).

Any other suggestions? Does ASI marketing have any ideas in the works? I'd like to start training my tongue as soon as possible. How many years have I been an Authorized iMIS Solution Provider, yet "iMIS Reseller" is still more natural to say.

I'll wrap up with some lovely haiku written a couple of years ago by my good friend Jeff Spring. It is perhaps less accurate than before, but still speaks to the very essence of what COM-iBO has meant to so many of us...

iBO will be dead
replaced by iMIS 15
in death it is fixed