Saturday, July 25, 2015

What's in a name?


Some companies' marketing departments need a reboot.  Swiftly.

Raytheon is one of three companies competing for a USAF contract to develop a replacement for the J-STARS ground surveillance and battle management system.  Flight Global reports:

As Northrop, Lockheed and Boeing battle for the prime contractor position, Raytheon is flying under the radar, so to speak, by offering its new “Skynet” radar to all sides. The company is in a non-exclusive partnership with Lockheed, but says it will offer its radar – believed to be a 16ft derivative of the Advanced Airborne Sensor (AAS) carried on the Boeing P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft – to whichever company wants it.

According to Raytheon: “Skynet incorporates the latest innovations developed for the US Navy’s stringent, wide-area surveillance requirements [and] meets or exceeds all JSTARS requirements for the lowest possible cost.”

There's more at the link.

Skynet?  SKYNET???  Could there possibly be a less appropriate name for battle management technology?




Peter

11 comments:

richard mcenroe said...

You can't out-fiction stupid.

Will said...

I'll bet that some people in the company don't like those in the marketing dept. So, they kept their mouth shut when those f'ing idiots opened theirs and, once again, proved just how stupid they are.

Brother Pilot said...

I'm not sure whether to sell my Raytheon stock, or buy more.

bmq215 said...

You can't deny that, when it came to battlefield management, Skynet was wildly effective.

Heh said...

I guarantee you that some clueless senior executive came up with the name, and everyone (as usual) nodded, smiled, and said, "Great idea, sir!" -- even the people who knew the name's unfortunate association.

Such is the power of brownnose and groupthink.

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty sure that there is another solution possible for not telling the executives the truth....:

Survival. (Here of the job)

It's like the emperor's clothes, or the bringer of bad messages,in the current working climate
I've often heard or even seen in my own case,that the bosses male or female don't really like people,
who're telling them the unpatable truth.

Oh officially they're telling everyone that they are for a open and free relationship between them
and the working stiffs, but it's even another ballgame entirely when the stiff has the temerity
to have a negative opinion in regards to the newest brainfart of the bosses, and has a logical
or anedoctal reason for it...

Anonymous said...

In case you haven't noticed, the chief goal of the "global governance" gang is the extermination of the bulk of the human population and the enslavement of the survivors. Its one hell of a lot easier to do that with automated robotic killing machines , than thinking, FEELING humans that might not cooperate when it is their turn to get in the oven. IMO the cheeky bastards that came up with the name KNEW EXACTLY what they were doing. They thought it was funny---Ray

J Van Stry said...

I worked for Grumman when the J-STARS aircraft were developed. There are quite a few funny stories that surrounded it (I worked for flight test).
My favorite though, is after the first gulf war, where we ran Saddam out of Kuwait, the USAF had Grumman send all the J-STARs aircraft over there, and used them throughout the war.

Afterwards the USAF calls up Grumman and tells them to come get the aircraft back, so they can be flight tested! Grumman tells them 'No, we're not flight testing them, you already accepted them and deployed them, and they worked. That's your flight test, and it's over!"

The USAF is made up of some of the biggest assholes in the military (I should know, I was in it) I don't think any other branch would try to pull something off, as stupid as that. Whats funny is that few people know of how key the J-STARs aircraft were to winning in the middle east. It's hard to win a battle when the enemy has real time information on every soldier and vehicle you possess.

Bruce said...

Nah, I chalk this one up to Emperor Mong:
Engineer: "We can't call it SkyNet! It has too many bad connotations with robots taking over the world! There's been like 6 Terminator movies and a TV series or two! THIS IS A BAD IDEA!"
Emperor Mong: "EXACTLY! It has punch and describes what the marketing types wish it could do. It'll be instant name recognition and everybody will understand it! It's PERFECT! Trust ME!"

jic said...

The UK military satelite comunication network is also called Skynet. Although, to be fair, they've been using that name since the late '60s.

jic said...

Ugh, I wish I'd spellchecked that...