Monash trainers settle name clash
- — 16 February, 2004 08:00
One of Australia's leading Microsoft trainers will drop .Net from its title following a name clash with a Monash University company.
Monash Dot Net Pty Ltd, a national provider of .Net training and consultancy services, will change its name to Readify on February 28 to end confusion with Monash University's commercial training business, Monash IT (MIT).
Monash Dot Net managing director Graeme Armstrong said an agreement had been reached with the university late last year after MIT was incorporated as a company.
"[Three years ago] when we formed, the university was comfortable with us using the name.
"Two years on and the [.Net] technology edge has worn a bit thin, but the main factor was the MIT relaunch," Armstrong said.
For 30 years MIT was the Pearcey Centre for Computing, and was more recently known as the Monash IT Institute. The institute offers a wider, less specialised course selection nationally, and was incorporated last year to improve links with industry.
"The rebranding is to do with the supposed conflict between us," said MIT managing director John Dowell.
The similarity in names had not caused problems for MIT. "They've [Monash Dot Net] been asked [previously] to state they're not a Monash University company," he said.
However for Monash Dot Net, which claims to have trained 2000 developers, "50 percent of people we've been introduced to have asked if we're part of the university," Armstrong said.
"[Company director] Professor Christine Mingins is our only current link to the university. So we agreed the confusion wasn't healthy...and we were happy to change," he said.
The Readify name will convey the company's differing focus on organisations looking to adopt new technology quickly.
"We didn't expect to broaden our training involvement," Armstrong said. "We're all software engineers who want to improve the technology and its implementation."
Accordingly, while both are Microsoft Certified Technical Education Centres (CTEC), and part of the Certified Partner Learning Solutions program, Monash Dot Net develops its own curriculum as opposed to using the Microsoft official curriculum.
Original material allows the company to be progressive trainers, hence the decision to drop .Net from the name. "We realised at the start there was a limited life for the .Net element," Armstrong said.
"Later we'll be training people for BizTalk Server 2004, Whidbey and Yukon. All server components will be developed as part of .Net [so] we chose the Readify name so people don't see .Net as purely a development platform."
Readify will continue to offer the same courses as Monash Dot Net, Armstrong said.
