We've recently been visited by 3 competing Westgroup salesmen from
different subsidiaries claiming to be our reps; this follows up on 3 LCP
slesmen in a month, each making a different offer for cd-roms. The time
has long since passed for West to stop worrying about names to cover for
incompatibilities in products and services. A rose by any other name still
stinks!
Perhaps if we all sent West a bill for the extra time our tech services
staffs are spending trying to straighten out bills, we'd feel better about
the flurry of West announcements indicating lots of activity but no
resolutions. I admit that I'm extra unhappy at the impending departures of
Bill Lindberg and Craig Runde who could always be counted on to solve
problems for the law school sector.The new West appears to be losing its
institutional memory and loyalty to its customers.
At 01:27 PM 3/26/97 -0800, Jane Evans wrote:
> I just attended a meeting at the West Group training center here in
>San Francisco, where they announced their new combination (Premise,
>Folio, Westlaw) search engine. The name of this new product is Trinity.
> Trinity is the code name for the test blast of the world's first
>atomic bomb in New Mexico July 1945. J. Robert Oppenheimer named it
>after Donne's sonnet "Batter my heart, three-pronged god". Given the
>legacy of Trinity - real and metaphorical nuclear clouds - I hope West
>Group will rethink the name of their proposed product.
> An excellent film, The Day After Trinity, about Oppenheimer and the
>project, has been shown several times on PBS and may be
>available in your public library's video collection.
> As I'm not religious I won't address the appropriateness of naming the
>search engine after a concept central to Christianity.
> Granted that as those involved in West's Trinity project probably
>weren't born when Trinity occurred, they may not have been aware of the
>horrible historical connotations of the name. We are however all living
>with the terrible consequences of the development of atomic bombs.
>
>Jane W. Evans janevans@netcom.com
>California Court of Appeal First District
>303 2nd St., Ste. 600 South
>San Francisco CA 94107
>415 396-9758
>
>
>
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