The new name for eBox Platform is Zentyal!

[hvilppola]

As Ignacio and Roxane already tipped you off in their previous posts, eBox Platform changes name and yes, now the new name is official! From the 1st of September eBox Platform will be Zentyal! We hope you like how it sounds !

If you read Ignacio's post, you already know that the most important reason for changing the name of eBox Platform was that it does not correspond with what the product is and what we do. Simply put: "eBox Platform" or "eBox" suggest that the software comes in a box (server hardware, appliance...) and this is definitely not the case. eBox Platform is purely server software that comes with a cloud-based subscription services.

As Roxane described in her post, choosing the new name for eBox Platform was quite a lengthy process. Once the eBox Team rolled up their sleeves and started the search armed with a tough requirement list, we came up with over 1.000 names. Of this list, first 85, then three and eventually one name, Zentyal, was selected. So, why this name?

Well, to start with, we believe that the name Zentyal reflects better the product itself. The main aim of eBox Platform has always been and is, to make something as essential as network management easy and secure. At least to the eBox Team the word "Zentyal" transmits the qualities of Zen, such as intuition, insight, balance and coolness together with the qualities of Essential, such as easy, basic, fundamental and necessary. All pretty matching qualities for what we aim to do, I would say.

And on a side note, regarding the more practical side of the new name, we believe that Zentyal is easy to remember, easy to pronounce and short. Moreover, the word is pronounced similarly both in English and Spanish, that is a great plus !

So, how many repeats does it take to get used to the new name? Well, some, but as I and the whole eBox Team believe that this was the correct decision, we feel proud and excited to start this new chapter in our story! In addition, we have pre-announced the new name already to partners and some community members and so far, we have only encountered positive comments regarding the change which is truly encouraging.

So, what do you think about it? Feel free to leave any comments to this post !

[josejad]

Sounds good¡
Good luck in this transition...

[Svein Wisnaes]

Congratulations on the new name!

And thank you for all the hard work you guys are putting into this project. We all appreciate it and are eager to see 2.0 released.

[hvilppola]

Thank you for your messages ! It's very busy over here, but at the same time we're very excited about the 2.0 release, the new name and everything that comes with these changes!!

[Sam Graf]

And on a side note, regarding the more practical side of the new name, we believe that Zentyal is easy to remember, easy to pronounce and short. Moreover, the word is pronounced similarly both in English and Spanish, that is a great plus !

I'm completely sure that it's just me, but I'm not sure how to pronounce it ... 

It's very cool that the project continues to move forward. It's still my opinion that Zentyal will do more to reshape the small business network landscape than any other single tool. It opens doors to non-Linux professionals if nothing else. Hopefully the new branding and the 2.0 release will fully reward the hard work of everyone on the team!

[nachico]

I'm completely sure that it's just me, but I'm not sure how to pronounce it ... 

What a disheartening comment Just joking We really thought Zentyal would be easy to pronounce, but anyway, here is a sample:

http://www2.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php -> select Mike -> write Zentyal -> press speak

It's very cool that the project continues to move forward. It's still my opinion that Zentyal will do more to reshape the small business network landscape than any other single tool. It opens doors to non-Linux professionals if nothing else. Hopefully the new branding and the 2.0 release will fully reward the hard work of everyone on the team!

Thanks! That's a really encouraging comment We do believe so. The 2.0 release is coming with a lot of performance and usability improvements, as well as a lot more stability. Also, we are working hard to offer from Sept onwards training materials that could help Windows sysadmins make a smooth move to Linux through Zentyal. Let's see how it all works out.

[hu76]

I couldn't figure the pronunciation either.

It looked like zent yall, but in reading about the Zen and Essential I figured it was zen chee all, I see now from the vocalization link it is zent yule, which is fine, but, unfortunately, for most of us english speakers, will require explanation to our prospective clients.

Cool! 

[Sam Graf]

It looked like zent yall ...

Exactly my first read also! But that seemed unlikely as a Spanish pronunciation, so I needed a little help.

The key will be to say it right. I think I've got it.

[marcusyoung]

There is definitely not an obvious way to pronounce this word for a native english speaker, and should probably have been tested with a few of them first, rather than relying on a computer generated pronunciation.

I first pronounced it zen-teee-al

having read the mention of the link to essential .. I then thought was it meant to be zen-chee-al.

Then I thought, is it meant to be zent-yal

The automated  pronunciation says zent-yul ... which I never quite got to on my own!

[nachico]

FYI, I just wrote a post in my blog with a few notes about how to pronounce Zentyal.

Cheers,

[einaren]

Hi. I'm from Norway. I can neither figure out how to pronounce nor spell it. So every time i need to find your webpage... I google for ebox :-O

If you can, I would appreciate if you could try to make Gogle remember that Zential used to be called ebox so that I may still find you next month.

The software is excellent thought. (But I must admit that I do not understand why you would not keep easy-to-spell, easy-to-pronunce and easy-to-remember name eBox ;-)

Einar

[nachico]

Come on Einar! Zentyal is just a seven-character, easy-to-pronounce name with a mnemonic that makes it easy to remember. I am sure with just a little effort you will learn it!

We have already explained the reasons why we have changed our name and most people have found them very reasonable. Anyway, if you are not convinced yet, just think about Lenovo's announcement a few weeks ago to launch a product called eBox (disclaimer: their announcement and our decision to change our name were totally unrelated events, just pure coincidence). Had we decided to continue with our old name, in a few years or even months we would have ended up spending a lot of our energy in a legal fight for the brand name. And I believe everyone in this forum would prefer us focusing our efforts in making an even better product, don't you think?

[lutefisk]

Interesting.  Very, *very* interesting.  In the space of a couple hours after getting home from work I've discovered Zentyal for the first time, downloaded a copy, installed it to my VirtualBox host, and am now in the process of configuring it.  All quite painless so far, and perusing forums, howtos, and docs, appear to place this particular product right dead-center in 'Hey, this is exactly what I was looking for!' category.

Thanks folks...I'll be putting it through its paces this weekend.

And to think it all started with me googling for an Apache GUI. 

[Svein Wisnaes]

Velkommen til forumet! (Welcome to the forum).

Judging by the name, you are a Norwegian :-) I hope you will enjoy your testing, and if you have any questions, please post them in the forum.