And the names meant something. Nortel was Northern Telecom. Microsoft made software. International Business Machines may have been a mouthful, but the name became a reality. Computer Associates. StorageTek. Cabletron.

All that changed somewhere along the way. Middleware vendors build platforms that integrate diverse and complex applications, paving the way for Web services, a concept born in the '80s under the moniker distributed applications, which turned out to be a lofty goal, but hardly a simple one. You will be hard-pressed to find a vendor that sells just a targeted security application. Gone are the VPN vendors, swallowed by bigger players rounding out suites of products masquerading as holistic security solutions. It's gotten so bad I heard an expert sheepishly admit he wasn't sure there was a difference between Symantec and Network Associates.

Despite this blending (convergence?) of technology, vendors will tell you there is little competition. "We don't really have any competitors yet," I've heard dozens of companies tell me with a straight face. "Nobody does what we do." And maybe all they've done is add some QoS tags to two-year-old switching technology. I hate to bear bad news, but companies have differentiated their products for years based on features, yet still have competed vigorously.

The markets these companies create are as confusing as an Enron financial statement. Take Interface Dynamics, which says its product "is built around the peer-to-peer paradigm." OK, so what does it do? "But it is not 'yet another Napster clone.' " The old "we don't compete" clause, and we still don't know what it does. The product "is capable of file sharing, it's actually a presence framework." A presence framework, you say. Moreover, this is "a product that puts more power into the end users hands than any other product has attempted to do before." The obligatory hyperbole.

And, oh, the names these companies come up with. The product from Interface Dynamics? WuWu.

Wireless vendor BreezeCom now it calls itself Alvarion. In a release last year, it said the following about its name: "The name Alvarion depicts seamless, smooth and effortless connectivity; diversity of use; flight, freedom, space and the open air; the breadth, reach and inherent potential of broadband technology; and a sense of focus, clarity of mission and confidence of purpose. The root words that comprise the new name include all, alternate and alternative; vary, variable, various and variety; air; and on."

On what, is the question. Similar tripe came out of Avaya and Enterasys when those companies began wearing their new names. They are all fine names and fine companies, but don't tell me that upon hearing of Alvarion I'll be swept away by thoughts of flight and freedom, rushing to my nearest integrator for some wireless bridges for better clarity.

Alvarion says its part of the BWA industry. BWA? Better Word Association?

Late last year a company called Blue Squirrel informed us of a new product called BluePaste. Naturally, it transfers text from your PC to your PDA. (Blue Squirrel's message to us began "In a nutshell," which is reason enough to ignore the product even if the problem it purports to solve had not been solved a few years ago.)

By now, you should be well versed in how to identify the key facets of a press release, so I'll just quote one here for your own breakdown -- it's got it all: "Yo.net, a world-leading network convergence software solutions company, today announced the launch of VisEdge, a Secure Private Network platform and family of integrated applications, marking the beginning of a new era of enterprise network computing."

Peace out, yo.