Company Profile

All company and its brand and product Hindustan Unilever Limited

Type Headquart ers Industry

Products Parent Website

Public company BSE:HUL Mumbai, India Fast Moving Consumer Goods FMCG) Home & Personal Care, Foods, Water Purifier Unilever Plc www.hul.co.in

Hindustan Unilever Limited (abbreviated to HUL) (BSE: HUL) formerly Hindustan Lever Limited, is India’s largest consumer products company and has an annual turnover of over Rs 13,000 crores (calendar year 2007)[1]. It was formed in 1933 as Lever Brothers India Limited and came into being in 1956 as Hindustan Lever Limited through a merger of Lever Brothers, Hindustan Vanaspati Mfg. Co. Ltd. and United Traders Ltd.. It is headquartered in Mumbai, India and has an employee strength of over 15,000 employees and contributes for indirect employment of over 52,000 people. The company was renamed in late June 2007 to “Hindustan Unilever Limited”. In 2007, Hindustan Unilever was rated as the most respected company in India for the past 25 years by Business World, one of India’s leading business magazines [2]. The rating was based on a compilation of the magazines annual survey of India’s Most Reputed Companies over the past 25 years. HUL is the market leader in Indian consumer products with presence in over 20 consumer categories such as Soaps, Tea, Detergents and Shampoos amongst others with over 700 million Indian consumers using its products. It has over 35 brands. Sixteen of HUL’s brands featured in the AC Nielsen-Brand Equity list of 100 Most Trusted Brands Annual Survey (2008) [3] . According to Brand Equity, HUL has the largest number of brands in the Most Trusted Brands

List. It’s a company that has consistently had the largest number of brands in the Top 50 and in the Top 10 (with 4 brands). Hindustan Unilever distribution covers over 1 million retails outlets across India directly and its products are available in over 6.3 million outlets in India, i.e. nearly 80% of the retail outlets in India. It has 39 factories in the country. Two out of three Indians use the company’s products and HUL products have the largest consumer reach being available in over 80 per cent of consumer homes across India. The Anglo-Dutch company Unilever owns a majority stake (52%) in Hindustan Unilever Limited. HUL was one of the eight Indian companies to be featured on the Forbes list of World’s Most Reputed companies in 2007 [4].

History - Chronology In the summer of 1888, visitors to the Kolkata harbour noticed crates full of Sunlight soap bars, embossed with the

words "Made in England by Lever Brothers". With it, began an era of marketing branded Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG). Soon after followed Lifebuoy in 1895 and other famous brands like Pears, Lux and Vim. Vanaspati was launched in 1918 and the famous Dalda brand came to the market in 1937. In 1931, Unilever set up its first Indian subsidiary, Hindustan Vanaspati Manufacturing Company, followed by Lever Brothers India Limited (1933) and United Traders Limited (1935). These three companies merged to form HUL in November 1956; HUL offered 10% of its equity to the Indian public, being the first among the foreign subsidiaries to do so. Unilever now holds 52.10% equity in the company. The rest of the shareholding is distributed among about 360,675 individual shareholders and financial institutions. The erstwhile Brooke Bond's presence in India dates back to 1900. By 1903, the company had launched Red Label tea in the country. In 1912, Brooke Bond & Co. India Limited was formed. Brooke Bond joined the Unilever fold in 1984 through an international acquisition. The erstwhile Lipton's links with India were forged in 1898. Unilever acquired Lipton in 1972, and in 1977 Lipton Tea (India) Limited was incorporated. Pond's (India) Limited had been present in India since 1947. It joined the Unilever fold through an international acquisition of Chesebrough Pond's USA in 1986.

Brands

Wheel Detergent ad in rural Nepal area. The company has a distribution channel of 6.3 million outlets and owns 35 major Indian brands.[5] Some of its brands include Kwality Wall's ice cream, Lifebuoy, Lux, Breeze, Liril, Rexona, Hamam, Moti soaps, Pureit Water Purifier, Lipton tea, Brooke Bond tea, Bru Coffee, Pepsodent and Close Up toothpaste and brushes, and Surf, Rin and Wheel laundry detergents,

Kissan squashes and jams, Annapurna salt and atta, Pond's talcs and creams, Vaseline lotions, Fair & Lovely creams, Lakmé beauty products, Clinic Plus, Clinic All Clear, Sunsilk and Dove shampoos, Vim dishwash, Ala bleach and Domex disinfectant.Rexona,Modern Bread and Axe deosprays Leadership HUL has produced many business leaders for corporate India. It is referred to as a 'CEO Factory' in the Indian press for the same reasons.[who?] It's leadership building potential was recognized when it was ranked 4th in the Hewitt Global Leadership Survey 2007 with only GE, P&G and Nokia ranking ahead of HUL in the ability to produce leaders with such regularity.[6][7][8] Mission Unilever's mission is to add Vitality to life. We meet everyday needs for nutrition, hygiene, and personal care with brands that help people feel good, look good and get more out of life Vision Tag line-According to the CEO of HUL Mr Douglas Bailey the new logo and name

symbolizes the idea of vitality. He says “The identity symbolises the benefits we bring to our consumers and the communities we work in. Our mission is full of promise for the future, opening up exciting opportunities where we have competitive advantage for developing our business and our new identity will help us confidently position ourselves in every aspect of our business

Ceo-MUMBAI: FMCG major Hindustan Unilever on Monday announced the appointment of Nitin Paranjpe as the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of the company, while Douglas Baillie will be elevated as the Unilever Group Executive. Paranjpe would replace Baillie, who would also be the Group President for Unilever's business in Western Europe, HUL said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Present Stature Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is India's largest Fast Moving Consumer Goods company, touching the lives of two out of three Indians with over 20 distinct categories in Home & Personal Care Products and Foods & Beverages. They endow the company with a scale of combined volumes of about 4 million tonnes and sales of nearly Rs.13718 crores. HUL is also one of the country's largest exporters; it has been recognised as a Golden Super Star Trading House by the Government of India. The mission that inspires HUL's over 15,000 employees, including over 1,300 managers, is to "add vitality to life." HUL meets everyday needs for nutrition, hygiene, and personal care with brands that help people feel good, look good and get more out of life. It is a mission HUL shares with its parent company, Unilever, which holds 52.10% of the equity. The rest of the shareholding is distributed among 360,675 individual shareholders and financial institutions.

HUL's brands - like Lifebuoy, Lux, Surf Excel, Rin, Wheel, Fair & Lovely, Pond's, Sunsilk, Clinic Plus, Pepsodent, Close-up, Lakme, Brooke Bond, Kissan, Knorr-Annapurna, Kwality Wall's – are household names across the country and span many categories - soaps, detergents, personal products, tea, coffee, branded staples, ice cream and culinary products. They are manufactured over 40 factories across India. The operations involve over 2,000 suppliers and associates. HUL's distribution network, comprising about 4,000 redistribution stockists, covering 6.3 million retail outlets reaching the entire urban population, and about 250 million rural consumers. In 2001, the company embarked on an ambitious programme, Shakti. Through Shakti, HUL is creating micro-enterprise opportunities for rural women, thereby improving their livelihood and the standard of living in rural communities. Shakti also includes health and hygiene education through the Shakti Vani Programme, and creating access to relevant information through the iShakti community portal. The program now covers 15 states in India and has over 45,000 women entrepreneurs in its fold, reaching out to 135,000 villages and directly reaching to 150 million rural consumers. By the end of 2010, Shakti aims to have 100,000 Shakti entrepreneurs covering 500,000 villages, touching the lives of over 600 million people. HUL is also running a rural health programme – Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetana. The programme endeavours to induce adoption of hygienic practices among rural Indians and aims to bring down the incidence of diarrhoea. It has already touched 84.6 million people in approximately 43890 villages of 8 states. The vision is to make a billion Indians feel safe and secure. If Hindustan Unilever straddles the Indian corporate world, it is because of being single-minded in identifying itself with Indian aspirations and needs in every walk of life. [2] Controversy Mercury pollution In 2001 a thermometer factory in Kodaikanal run by Hindustan Unilever was accused of dumping glass contaminated with mercury in municipal dumps, or selling it on to scrap merchants unable to deal with it appropriately.[9]

Hindustan Unilever Limited Hindustan Unilever Limited also called Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) was established in 1933 as Lever Brothers India Limited. Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL) is India's largest Fast Moving Consumer Goods Company, with a customer base of 2 out of every 3 Indian in the category of Home & Personal Care Products and Foods & Beverages. The company has combined volumes of about 4 million tonnes and sales of Rs.10, 000 crores. HLL is also one of the country's largest exporters; the Government of India has recognized HLL as a Golden Super Star Trading House.

Type

Public

Headquarters

Mumbai , India

Key people

Mr.Harish Manwani , Chairman Douglas Baillie, CEO

Industry

FMCG

Products

Tea, soap, detergents

Employees

41,000

Parent

Unilever

Website

www.hll.com

Some of HLL brands are: •

Kwality Walls Ice Cream

•

Hamam

•

Lifebuoy

•

Rexona

•

Lux

•

Liril

•

Moti Soaps

•

Breeze

•

Lipton Tea

•

Brooke Bond Tea

•

Bru Coffee

•

Pepsodent

•

Close Up

•

Surf

•

Rin

•

Wheel Laundry Detergent

•

Kissan

•

Annapurna

•

Pond's

•

Vaseline

•

Fair & Lovely

•

Lakmé

•

Clinic Plus

•

Clinic All Clear

•

Sunsilk and Lux Shampoos

•

Vim

•

Ala Bleach

•

Domex

•

Pureit Water Purifier

The Hindustan Lever Research Center (HLRC) was established in 1958, and now has facilities in Mumbai & Bangalore. HLRC has 200 highly qualified scientists and technologists, many of them with post-doctoral experience. HLL also runs various ambitious programmes like Shakti. Shakti's aim is to

create opportunities for rural women thereby improving their livelihood and standard of living in rural sector. Shakti also includes health and hygiene education through the Shakti Vani Programme. The programme covers about 50,000 villages in 12 states. HLL's motive is to take this programme to 100,000 villages influencing the lives of over a 100 million rural Indians. HLL is also involved in running a rural health programme - Lifebuoy Swasthya Chetana. The programme aims to inculcate the hygienic practices among rural Indians to bring down the figure of diarrhea patients. It has already covered 70 million people in approximately 15000 villages of 8 states. 1996

Sales

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

7120,0 8342,7 10215,2 10917,6 11392,1 11781,3 10951,6 11096,0 10888,3 11975,5 6 5 4 9 4 0 1 2 8 3

Profit After 412,70 580,25 580,25 1069,94 1310,09 1540,95 1731,32 1804,34 1199,28 1354,51 Taxatio n

New Ventures Hindustan Lever Network Ayush Ayurvedic Products & Services Sangam Pureit Water Purifiers

Exports HPC Beverages Marine Products Rice Castor

Ayush Ayurvedic Products from Hindustan Unilever Ltd started by skopikar 2 yrs ago It goes without saying that "Prevention is Always Better than Cure". When a person is sick, it is a drain not only on the finances of the household but also prevents the concerned person from enjoying all the good things in life. Our ancient system of Ayurveda coupled with the largest FMCG company in India, Hindustan Unilever Ltd, have come up with great solutions to many health problems. Anti-aging, Diabetes, Joint pains, Hair care, Special supplements for children and so on are some of the areas handled. Health conscious people are welcome to open a discussion on the subject.

Shakti: The Vision

HUL envisions the creation of 1,00,000 Shakti Entrepreneurs covering 5,00,000 villages, and touching the lives of 600 million rural people by the year 2010.

©2004 Hindustan Unilever Limited. All rights reserved. All logos are copyright protected trademarks of Hindustan Unilever Limited. Please view Terms of Usage. hulshakti.com is best viewed on 600 x 800 screen resolution on IE and Netscape 4 + browsers. Some of the pages on this site use dynamic fonts to display language content. If you face problems viewing pages on the site please write to webmaster at [email protected]

Premium Company Profile: Hindustan Unilever Limited Introduction Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL), a subsidiary of Unilever, is a fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) company based in India. The company focuses on efficient delivery to consumers with an improved supply chain, brand building initiatives and innovation, which has helped the company to sustain its leadership position in the overall FMCG category in India. Scope of this report •

Contains corporate strategy, value chain presence and SWOT Analysis

•

Provides detailed business description, segment analysis, 5-year financial trends, key products and key competitors

•

Includes information on suppliers/ partners, shareholding structure and key employees with biographies

Research and analysis highlights

Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) is a packaged mass consumption fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) company based in India. It offers foods, beverages, home care, and personal care products. Its operations are divided into seven reportable divisions: soaps and detergents, personal products, beverages, foods, ice creams, exports, and other operations. Its brands are spread across 20 consumer product categories. Hindustan Unilever markets consumer goods throughout India. The company faces competition from international, local and regional players. The company derives 44.3% of its revenues from soaps and detergents, 26.6% from personal care products, 10.5% from beverages, and the rest from foods, ice creams, exports, and other products. As counterfeit trade increases, the company stands to lose on its brand equity and exclusivity. Key reasons to read this report •

Access all the important information and analysis on the company in a single report

•

Understand company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats along with business strategy and value chain

•

Gain access to company's adjusted five year financial data along with key ratios and market capitalization

Table of Contents Overview

1

Catalyst

1

Summary

1

Table of Contents

2

tables

3

Company Structure

4

Company Overview and Key Facts

4

Business Description

5

Soaps and detergents division

5

Overview

5

Financials

6

Personal products division

6

Overview

6

Financials

6

Beverages division

6

Overview

6

Financials

6

Foods division

6

Overview

6

Financials

7

Ice creams division

7

Overview

7

Financials

7

Exports business division

7

Overview

7

Financials

7

Other operations division

7

Overview

7

Financials

8

History

9

Company Locations and Subsidiaries

11

Head Office

11

Other Locations and Subsidiaries

11

Company Financials

12

Overview

12

Revenue by Division

12

Revenue by Geography

13

Products and Services List

14

Major Products and Services

14

List of Products

14

List of Brands

16

Competitors and strategic business relationships

17

Top Competitors

17

List of Competitors

17

Suppliers and Partners

18

Clients

19

Shareholding Structure

20

Strategy

21

Vision

21

Mission

21

Company Statement

22

Strategy

24

Leveraging Unilever's global scale

24

Simplifying organizational structure

24

Focus on supply chain

25

Focus on Brand building

25

Corporate Social Responsibility

27

Overview

27

Community commitment

27

Stakeholders

27

Environment commitment

27

SWOT Analysis

28

Overview

28

Strengths

29

Strong brand image

29

Strong product portfolio

29

Strong sales and distribution network

29

Weaknesses

31

Declining revenues from processed triglycerides/ hydrogenated oils/vanaspati

31

Decline in market share in toilet soaps market

31

Opportunities

32

Initiatives in personal care products

32

Project Shakti

32

Growing cosmetics market in India

32

Threats

33

Regulations

33

Increasing competition

33

Retail consolidation

33

Value Chain Analysis

35

Overview

35

Raw material

36

Overview

36

Manufacturing

36

Overview

36

Distribution and sales

36

Overview

36

Marketing

36

Overview

36

Services

37

Overview

37

Key Employees

38

List of Key Employees

38

Key Employee Biographies

39

Douglas Baillie

39

Harish Manwani

39

M.K. Sharma

40

S. Ravindranath

40

D.S. Parekh

40

V. Narayanan

40

C.K. Prahalad

41

A. Narayan

41

S. Ramadorai

41

D. Sundaram

41

Shirjeet Mishra

42

Ashok Gupta

42

Leena Nair

42

Financial and Operational Overview

43

Financial Overview

43

Key Industry-specific Ratios

45

APPENDIX

46

Data Definitions

46

Ask the analyst

46

Consulting

46

Disclaimer

47

List of Tables Table 1: Hindustan Unilever - Key Facts

4

Table 2: Hindustan Unilever - Other Locations and Subsidiaries

11

Table 3: Hindustan Unilever - Revenue by Division, 2005-2006 ($ Mn)

13

Table 4: Hindustan Unilever - Revenue by Geography, 2005-2006 ($ Mn)

13

Table 5: Hindustan Unilever - List of Products

14

Table 6: Hindustan Unilever - List of Brands

16

Table 7: Hindustan Unilever - List of Competitors

17

Table 8: Hindustan Unilever - Key Shareholders

20

Table 9: Hindustan Unilever - SWOT Analysis Summary

28

Table 10: Hindustan Unilever - Value Chain Analysis

35

Table 11: Hindustan Unilever - Key Employees

38

Table 12: Hindustan Unilever - Financial and Operational Highlights, 2002-2006 ($ Mn) 43 Table 13: Hindustan Unilever - Key Industry-specific Ratios, 2002-2006 Table14: Hindustan Unilever - Data Definitions

Shakti: How it all started?

45

HUL's INITIATIVE IN RURAL DEVELOPEMENT: Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) and its constituent companies have been in India since 1931.

Over these decades, while HUL has benefited from the developments in the country, it has contributed equally to these developments. HUL has consciously woven India's imperatives with the company's strategies and operations. The company’s main contributions include developing and using relevant technologies, stimulating industrialization, boosting exports, adding value to agriculture and generating productive employment and income opportunities.

HUL has been proactively engaged in rural development since 1976 with the initiation of the Integrated Rural Development Programme in the Etah district of Uttar Pradesh, in tandem with the company’s dairy operations. This Programme now covers 500 villages in the district. Subsequently, the factories that HUL continued establishing in lessdeveloped regions of the country have been engaged in similar programmes in adjacent villages.

These factory-centered activities mainly focus on training farmers, animal husbandry, generating alternative income, health & hygiene and

infrastructure development. The company has acquired a wealth of experience and learning from these activities. KEY LEARNINGS ON RURAL DEVELOPEMENT: The principal issue in rural development is to create income-generating opportunities for the rural population. Such initiatives are successful and sustainable when linked with the company’s core business and is mutually beneficial to both the population for whom the programme is intended and for the company. Based on these insights, HUL launched Project Shakti in the year 2001, in keeping with the purpose of integrating business interests with national interests.

.

Procter & Gamble Profile REUTERS ABRIDGED BUSINESS SUMMARY

The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G), together with its subsidiaries, provides branded consumer goods products worldwide. The company operates in three global business units (GBU): Beauty, Health and Well-Being, and Household Care. The Beauty GBU consists of Beauty and Grooming segments. Beauty segment provides cosmetics, deodorants, hair care, personal cleansing, prestige fragrances, and skin care products primarily under Head & Shoulders, Olay, Pantene, CoverGirl, and Wella brands. Grooming segment offers blades and razors; electric hair removal devices; face and shave products; and home appliances under Braun, Fusion, Gillette, and Mach 3 brand names. The Health and Well-Being GBU includes Health Care, and Snacks, Coffee, and Pet Care segments. Health Care segment provides feminine care, oral care, personal health care, and pharmaceuticals primarily under Actonel, Always, Crest, and Oral-B brands. Snacks, Coffee, and Pet Care segment offers snacks, such as potato chips under Pringles brand name and pet care products under Iams and Eukanuba brands. The Household Care GBU consists of Fabric Care and Home Care, and Baby Care and Family Care segments. Fabric Care and Home Care segment offers fabric care products, including laundry products and fabric conditioners; home care products, such as dish care, surface cleaners, and air fresheners; and batteries. This segment offers its products under Ariel, Dawn, Downy, Duracell, Gain, and Tide brand names. Baby Care and Family Care segment provides diapers, training pants, baby wipes, bath tissues, facial tissues, and paper towels primarily under Bounty, Charmin, and Pampers brands. The company sells its products in approximately 180 countries through mass merchandisers, grocery stores, membership club stores, drug stores, department stores, salons, and high-frequency stores. P&G was founded in 1837 and is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. Headquarters: One Procter & Gamble Plaza Cincinnati, OH 45201 Employees: 138,000 CEO: A.G. Lafley Stock Symbol: PG Website: http://www.pg.com Company News Career Site Procter and Gamble is the world's leading maker and distributor of household consumer products including soap, toilet paper, detergent, shampoo, coffee, razors and potato chips. The company's well-known brands include: Ivory soap, Tide detergent, Cascade dishwashing detergent, Folgers coffee, Pringle's potato chips, Head and Shoulders shampoo, Crest toothpaste, Pampers, Downy, Duracell, Gillette, Braun, Pepto Bismol and Tampax. Products may have different localized brand names in other countries. The company has over 300 brands in over 160 countries. P&G has operations in over 80 countries. In fiscal 2007, P&G had record revenues of $76.4 billion and net income of $10.3 billion. Household Care made up $36.2 billion in revenues, Beauty and Health made $31.9 billion and Gillette Division generated $9.3 billion during 2007. The company spent more than $2 billion on research and development in 2007. P&G announced in June it would sell its Folgers coffee business to J.M. Smucker Company in a

Wipro Wipro Technologies is a corporation based in India. It was founded as a vegetable oil company, but since then has diversified into the information technology, consumer care, lighting, engineering and healthcare businesses. Wipro started as a vegetable oil company in 1947 from an old mill founded by Azim Premji's father. When his father died in 1966, Azim, a graduate in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, took on the leadership of the company at the age 21. He repositioned it and transformed Wipro (Western India Vegetable Products Ltd) into a consumer goods company that produced hydrogenated cooking oils/fat company, laundry soap, wax and tin containers and later set up Wipro Fluid Power to manufacture hydraulic and pneumatic cylinders in 1975. At that time, it was valued at $2 million Wipro Technologies is a global services provider delivering technology-driven business solutions. Wipro is the No.1 provider of integrated business, technology and process solutions on a global delivery platform. Azim Premji is the Chairman of Wipro Technologies. He took over the mantle of leadership of Wipro at the

age of 21 in 1966. Under his leadership, the fledgling US$ 2 million hydrogenated cooking fat company has grown to a US$1.76 billion IT Services organization serving customers across the globe. Wipro is presently ranked among the top 100 Technology companies in the world. It has 66,000+ employees, serves 592 clients, and has 46 development centers across globe. Wipro Technologies deals in following businesses:

•

IT Services: Wipro provides complete range of IT Services to the organization. The range of services extends from Enterprise Application Services (CRM, ERP, e-Procurement and SCM) to e-Business solutions. Wipro's enterprise solutions serve a host of industries such as Energy and Utilities, Finance, Telecom, and Media and Entertainment.

•

Product Engineering Solutions: Wipro is the largest independent provider of R&D services in the world. Using "Extended Engineering" model for leveraging R&D investment and accessing new knowledge and experience across the globe, people and technical infrastructure, Wipro enables firms to introduce new products rapidly.

•

Technology Infrastructure Service: Wipro's Technology Infrastructure Services (TIS) is the largest Indian IT infrastructure service provider in terms of revenue, people and customers with more than 200 customers in US, Europe, Japan and over 650 customers in India.

•

Business Process Outsourcing: Wipro provides business process outsourcing services in areas Finance & Accounting, Procurement, HR Services, Loyalty Services and Knowledge Services. In 2002, Wipro acquiring Spectramind and became one of the largest BPO service players.

•

Consulting Services: Wipro offers services in Business Consulting, Process Consulting, Quality Consulting, and Technology Consulting.

Group Companies of Wipro:

•

Wipro Infrastructure Engineering: It has emerged as the leader in the hydraulic cylinders and truck tipping systems market in India.

•

Wipro Infotech: It is one of the leading manufacturers of computer hardware and a provider of systems integration services in India.

•

Wipro Lighting: It manufactures and markets the Wipro brand of luminaries. Wipro Lighting offers lighting solutions across various application areas such as commercial lighting for modern work spaces, manufacturing and pharmaceutical companies, designer petrol pumps and outdoor architecture.

Achievements of Wipro •

First Indian IT Service Provider to be awarded Gold-Level Status in Microsoft's Windows Embedded Partner Program.

•

World's largest independent R&D Services Provider.

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World's 1st PCMM Level 5 software company.

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World's 1st IT Services Company to use Six Sigma.

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The first to get the BS15000 certification for its Global Command Centre.

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Among the top 3 offshore BPO service providers in the world.

•

Only Indian company to be ranked among the 'Top 10 Global Outsourcing Providers' in the IAOP-Fortune Global 100 listings.

. Azim H. Premji  BIO

Azim H. Premji has been Wipro Ltd.'s Chairman of the Board and Managing Director since September  1968. Mr. Premji holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. Currently,  he is also a Director of Media Lab Asia

•

•

 The Information Technology 100 

•

•23 • Wipro •

Coming off its strongest year since 2000, Wipro grew at 43% in 2004. The  company has branched out from offerings such as software development, R&D,  and applications maintenance to providing remote infrastructure management,  financial services, and applications and product testing. All that while maintaining  its position as the world’s largest third­party R&D provider. Wipro, which gets the  majority of its revenue from the U.S., is pushing further in Europe and expects to  make some acquisitions there this year. At home, the company’s back­office  operation, Wipro BPO, got a jolt when Chief Executive Raman Roy quit in early  June to start another business. The $150 million operation, mostly call­center work,  will move into higher­end back­office jobs such as insurance processes in order to  achieve greater profitability and to stem the high employee attrition to new foreign  players. 

• Company Info  STOCK INFO

WIT

REVENUES*

$1.9 BILLION

Revenue Growth

39.2%

RETURN ON EQUITY

27.9%

Total Return

41.4%

PROFITS*

$363 MILLION

Industry

SERVICES

CORPORATE WEB SITE

Company Snapshot  Wipro Limited, through its subsidiaries, provides IT services worldwide. It offers software solutions, IT  consulting, business process outsourcing services, and research and development services in the areas  of hardware and software design. The company operates in three segments: Global IT Services and  Products, India and AsiaPac IT Services and Products, and Consumer Care and Lighting. The Global IT  Services and Products segment provides IT services to customers in the Americas, Europe, and Japan.  The India and AsiaPac IT Services and Products segment operates in the Indian IT market and offers IT  products and services to the companies in India, Asia­Pacific, and the Middle East region. Consumer  Care and Lighting segment engages in the manufacture and sale of consumer care and lighting products.  The consumer care products include soaps and toiletries, baby products, talcum powders, and  hydrogenerated cooking oils. The lighting products include light bulbs, flourescent tubes, and luminaries.  Wipro Limited was founded in 1945.The company is headquartered in Bangalore, India.  NO. OF EMPLOYEES

NA  DATA PROVIDED BY 

WIPRO COMPANY PROFILE Wipro Technologies is the No.1 provider of integrated business, technology and process solutions on a global delivery platform. Wipro Technologies is a global services provider delivering technology-driven business solutions that meet the strategic objectives of our clients. Wipro has 40+ ‘Centers of Excellence’ that create solutions around specific needs of industries. Wipro delivers unmatched business value to customers through a combination of process excellence, quality frameworks and service delivery innovation. Wipro is the World's first CMMi Level 5 certified software services company and the first outside USA to receive the IEEE Software Process Award. Wipro’s complete range of IT Services addresses the needs of both technology and business requirements to help organizations leverage leading-edge technologies for business improvement. Wipro takes charge of the IT needs of the entire enterprise. The gamut of services extends from Enterprise Application Services (CRM, ERP, e-Procurement and SCM), to e-Business solutions. Wipro’s enterprise solutions have served and continue to serve clients from a range of industries including Energy and Utilities, Finance, Telecom, and Media and Entertainment. Wipro’s TIS is the largest Indian IT infrastructure service provider Wipro’s Technology Infrastructure Services (TIS) is the largest Indian IT infrastructure service provider in terms of revenue, people and customers with more than 200 customers in US, Europe, Japan and over

650 customers in India. It is powered by the expert skills of over 6,500 technical specialists and state-ofthe-art BS 15000 certified infrastructure for operations support. A phased approach towards process standardization, process optimization and process re-engineering. Wipro BPO provides a broad range of services from customer relationship management, back office transaction processing to industry-specific solutions. The key element of services delivery is an integrated approach towards providing increasing value over the entire course of our client relationships. This involves a phased approach towards process standardization, process optimization and process reengineering True value from technology requires an in-depth understanding of business strategy. Today’s businesses need partners who can talk about strategy and technology in the same conversation. At Wipro, we believe true value from technology requires an in-depth understanding of business strategy. Our cross-industry consulting services help you craft a vision for your organization and then provide a specific, practical business and technology framework that will make that vision a reality. Our consulting competencies spread across business, process, quality and technology consulting. We've developed a model called "Extended Engineering” that leverages synergies across the value chain As product manufacturers and platform vendors across the world strive to make better products with shorter development cycles and reduced total cost of ownership, we at Wipro Technologies partner with them to provide comprehensive solutions in product lifecycle management and product realization. At Wipro, we've developed a model called "Extended enginering" that allows you to leverage synergies across the value chain and progress swiftly from concept to market. We are now the world's largest contract R&D house for telecom, auto and electronics For more details :www.wipro.com

infosys infosys Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: INFY) provides consulting and IT services to clients globally - as partners to conceptualize and realize technology drivInfosys Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: INFY) provides consulting and IT services to clients globally - as partners to conceptualize and realize technology driven business transformation initiatives. With over 49,000 employees worldwide, we use a low-risk Global Delivery Model (GDM) to accelerate schedules with a high degree of time and cost predictability. As one of the pioneers in strategic offshore outsourcing of software services, Infosys has leveraged the global trend of offshore outsourcing. Even as many software outsourcing companies were blamed for diverting global jobs to cheaper offshore outsourcing destinations like India and China, Infosys was recently applauded by Wired magazine for its unique offshore outsourcing strategy — it singled out Infosys for turning the outsourcing myth around and bringing jobs back to the US.

Infosys provides end-to-end business solutions that leverage technology. We provide solutions for a dynamic environment where business and technology strategies converge. Our approach focuses on new ways of business combining IT innovation and adoption while also leveraging an organization's current IT assets. We work with large global corporations and new generation technology companies - to build new products or services and to implement prudent business and technology strategies in today's dynamic digital environment.

Locations Corporate headquarters : Bangalore, India US headquarters : Fremont, CA Worldwide offices : Atlanta, Bangalore, Beijing, Bellevue, Berkeley Heights, Bhubaneswar, Brussels, Charlotte, Chennai, Detroit, Frankfurt, Fremont, Hong Kong, Hyderabad, Lake Forest, Lisle, London, Mangalore, Mauritius, Melbourne, Milano, Mohali, Mumbai, Mysore, New Delhi, Paris, Phoenix, Plano, Pune, Quincy, Reston, Shanghai, Sharjah, Stockholm, Stuttgart, Sydney, Thiruvananthapuram, Tokyo, Toronto, Utrecht, Zurich.

Employees 49,422 Main officers of the company Chairman of the Board and Chief Mentor : Narayana NR Murthy Managing Director, President and CEO : Nandan M Nilekani For further information visit http://www.infosys.com

tata Tata Group Company Profile

Ta-da! India's largest industrial conglomerate the Tata Group runs more than 90 companies in seven main business sectors: chemicals, communications and IT, consumer products, energy, engineering, materials, and services. Two of its largest operations are steelmaking, through Tata Steel, and vehicle manufacturing (Tata Motors). Tata Tea is one of the largest tea producers in the world and owns the venerable Tetley brand. Tata Steel acquired Corus Group for $12.2 billion, which created the sixth-largest steel company in the world, and made an even bigger splash with the 2008 acquisition of Land Rover and Jaguar from Ford. The group is managed through holding company Tata Sons. Contact Information

Address: Phone: Fax:

Tata Sons Limited, Bombay House, 24, Homi Mody St. Mumbai 400 001, India +91-22-6665-8282 +91-22-6665-8160

Financial Highlights

Fiscal Year End: Revenue (2007): Revenue Growth (1 yr): Employees (2007): Employee Growth (1 yr):

March 28500.00 M 33.20% 289,500 42.80%

Key People

• Chairman: Ratan N. Tata • Member, Group Executive Office and Group Corporate Centre, a: Ishaat Hussain • Member, Group Executive Office and Group Corporate Centre; M: Kishor A. Chaukar

Industry Information

Sector: Industrial Goods Industry: General Contractors

Top Competitors

• • •

Hindustan Unilever Limited Reliance Industries Limited Wipro Limited

Reliance Group The Reliance Group, founded by Dhirubhai H. Ambani (1932-2002), is India's largest private sector enterprise, with businesses in the energy and materials value chain. Group's annual revenues are in excess of US$ 34 billion. The flagship company, Reliance Industries Limited, is a Fortune Global 500 company and is the largest private sector company in India. Backward vertical integration has been the cornerstone of the evolution and growth of Reliance. Starting with textiles in the late seventies, Reliance pursued a strategy of backward vertical integration - in polyester, fibre intermediates, plastics, petrochemicals, petroleum refining and oil and gas exploration and production - to be fully integrated along the materials and energy value chain. The Group's activities span exploration and production of oil and gas, petroleum refining and marketing, petrochemicals (polyester, fibre intermediates, plastics and chemicals), textiles, retail and spacial economic zones. Reliance enjoys global leadership in its businesses, being the largest polyester yarn and fibre producer in the world and among the top five to ten producers in the world in major petrochemical products. The Group exports products in excess of US$ 20 billion to 108 countries in the world. Major Group Companies are Reliance Industries Limited (including main subsidiaries Reliance Petroleum Limited and Reliance Retail Limited) and Reliance Industrial Infrastructure Limited. Reliance Industries Limited Company Profile

India and Reliance Industries rely on each other. The company is India's largest petrochemical firm and among the country's largest companies (along with the likes of Indian Oil and the Tata Group). Oil refining and the manufacture of polyolefins (polyethylene, polypropylene, PVC, etc.) account

for nearly all of Reliance's sales. Additionally, the company makes textiles and explores for oil and gas, though those businesses are comparatively small. In 2006, following a dispute among the founding Ambani family, the company demerged into four separate entities; the newly created companies are Reliance Capital (financial services), Reliance Communications (telecommunications), and Reliance Energy (utilities).

Contact Information

Address: Phone: Fax:

3rd Fl., Makers Chambers IV, 222, Nariman Point Mumbai 400 021, India +91-22-2278-5000 +91-22-2278-5111

Financial Highlights

Fiscal Year End:

March

Key People

• Chairman and Managing Director: Mukesh D. Ambani

Industry Information

Sector: Basic Materials Industry: Oil & Gas Refining & Marketing

Top Competitors

• • •

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. Tata Grou

Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is India’s largest private sector company on all major financial parameters. It has emerged as the only Indian company in the list of global companies that create most value for their shareholders, published by Financial Times based on a global survey and research conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers in 2004. RIL features in the Forbes Global list of world’s 400 best big companies and in FT Global 500 list of world’s largest companies.

Reliance Infocomm is the outcome of late Dhirubhai Ambani’s dream of bringing about a digital revolution in India that will bring to every Indian’s doorstep an affordable means of information and communication. "Make the tools of infocomm available to people at an affordable cost. They will overcome the handicaps of illiteracy and lack of mobility", was how Dhirubhai, as he was fondly called, spelt out Reliance Infocomm’s mission in late 1999. He firmly believed the country could use information and communication technology to overcome its backwardness and underdevelopment.

It was with this belief that Reliance Infocomm began laying its 60,000 route kilometres of pan-India fibre optic backbone in 1999. The backbone was commissioned on December 28, 2002, Dhirubhai’s 70th birth anniversary, first since his sad demise on July 6, 2002.

Icici bank ICICI Bank Limited Company Profile

You see, ICICI Bank is India's #2 bank (after State Bank of India) and its largest private bank, with some 1,250 branches and 3,900 ATMs nationwide. It also has locations in about 20 other countries. ICICI's retail banking group offers lending and deposit services to small businesses and individuals; larger businesses are served by the corporate banking group, which offers finance services and treasury products. The rural and government banking unit offers micro-loans and agricultural banking. Foreign operations, as well as services related to international trade finance and expatriate Indians, fall under the international banking group. Other offerings include online banking, asset management, and insurance

Contact Information

Address: Phone: Fax:

ICICI Bank Towers, Bandra-Kurla Complex Mumbai 400 051, India +91-22 2653 1414 +91-22 2653 1175

Financial Highlights

Fiscal Year End: Revenue (2008): Revenue Growth (1 yr): Employees (2007): Employee Growth (1 yr):

March 15073.30 M 54.10% 61,697 47.40%

Key People

• Chairman: Narayanan Vaghul • Managing Director, CEO, and Director: Kundapur V. Kamath • Executive Director and CFO: N. S. Kannan

Industry Information

Sector: Financial Industry: Foreign Money Center Banks

Top Competitors

• • •

Canara Bank Punjab National Bank State Bank of India

ICICI Bank is spread across the length and breadth of the country. It has 614 branches and over 2200 ATMs. The bank offers a huge variety of services in retail banking and investment banking, life and non-life insurance, venture capital and asset management. To serve global clients the bank looks forward to strengthen its operations internationally. ICICI currently has subsidiaries in the UK, Russia, Canada, Singapore, Dubai, etc. ICICI Bank, with market capitalization of about Rs. 480.00 billion (US$ 10.8 billion), ranked third amongst all the companies listed on the Indian stock exchanges in June 2006. ICICI Bank's stock was listed on both BSE and NSE. The bank is offering various services in: Personal banking NRI banking Corporate banking

ICICI Bank

Rank - 4 2004-05

2005-06

No. of Offices

515

563

No.of Employees

18029

25479

Business per Employee(in Rs. Lakhs)

880

905

Profit per Employee( in Rs. Lakhs)

11

10

Investments( in Rs. Crores)

50487

71547

Hdfc bank BUSINESS SUMMARY

HDFC Bank Limited provides various financial products and services. It operates in three segments: Personal Banking, NRI Banking, and Wholesale Banking. The Personal Banking segment provides savings, and current and fixed deposit accounts. It also offers personal, home, two wheeler, new car, used car, gold, education, healthcare, commercial vehicle, working capital, construction equipment, and warehouse receipt loans. In addition, this segment provides safe deposit lockers; credit, debit, and prepaid cards; mutual funds, general and health insurance, bonds, and equities and derivatives products; and forex and payment services. The NRI Banking segment’s deposit products include rupee savings accounts, rupee current accounts, rupee fixed deposits, foreign currency deposits, and accounts for returning Indians. Its loan products comprise home loans, loans against securities, loans against deposits, and gold credit cards. The Wholesale Banking segment offers funded services, which consist of working capital finance, short term finance, bill discounting, and export credit; and nonfunded services, such as letters of credit, bank guarantees, and collection of documents to corporations, and small and medium enterprises. It also various services to banks, financial institutions, mutual funds, stock brokers, insurance companies, commodity businesses, and trusts. As of March 31, 2008, it had a network of 761 branches and 1,977 automated teller machines in 327 cities in India. The company was founded in 1994 and is based in Mumbai, India.

Key Statistics

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Profile Get Profile for:

HDFC Bank Ltd. HDFC Bank House Senapati Bapat Marg Kamala Mills Compound Mumbai, 400013 India - Map Phone: 91 22 5652 1000 Fax: 91 22 2496 0739 Web Site: http://www.hdfcbank.com

DETAILS

Index Membership:

N/A

Sector:

Financial

Industry:

Foreign Regional Banks

Full Time Employees:

37,836

Nokia Wireless wizard Nokia has cast a spell on the mobile phone market. The company is the world's #1 maker of cell phones (ahead of such rivals as Motorola and Samsung, among others). Nokia is also aiming for the top of the nascent mobile Internet market. The company's products are divided primarily between three divisions: devices (handheld device manufacturing); services and software (consumer Internet services and products); and markets (supply chains, sales channels, and marketing). Nokia's wireless network products business is operated in partnership with Siemens as Nokia Siemens Networks; the joint venture is the #3 player in the wireless networking equipment market behind Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent Nokia is a Finland-based company, established in 1865. The company is a leader in mobile communications. It has an employee base of around 58,874. It has 14 manufacturing facilities located in China, UK, Finland, Hungary, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, and the Republic of Korea. Its Research & Development centers are located in Japan and China

Financial Performance 2006 EUR m

2005 EUR m

Change %

Revised* 2004 EUR m

Net sales

41 121

34 191

20

29 371

Operating profit

5 488

4 639

18

4 326

Profit before taxes

5 723

4 971

15

4 705

Net profit

4 306

3 616

19

3 192

Research and development

3 897

3 825

2

3 776

Nokia is the world leader in mobility, driving the transformation and growth of the converging Internet and communications industries. We make a wide range of mobile devices with services and software that enable people to experience music, navigation, video, television, imaging, games, business mobility and more. Developing and growing our offering of consumer Internet... see more

Dell Dell Inc. Company Profile

The name Dell may be synonymous with "direct," but the computer giant has a more diverse approach to the market these days. The world's #1 direct-sales computer vendor provides a broad range of computer products for the consumer and enterprise markets. In addition to a full line of desktop and notebook PCs, Dell offers network servers, workstations, storage systems, printers, projectors, and Ethernet switches. It also markets third-party software and peripherals. Dell's growing services unit provides systems integration, support, and training. The company began selling through retail stores in 2007

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Profile Get Profile for:

Dell Inc. One Dell Way Round Rock, TX 78682 United States - Map Phone: 512-338-4400 Fax: 512-728-3653 Web Site: http://www.dell.com

DETAILS

S&P 100 Index Membership:

S&P 500 S&P 1500 Super Comp Nasdaq 100

Sector:

Technology

Industry:

Personal Computers

Full Time Employees:

82,700

BUSINESS SUMMARY

Dell, Inc. and its subsidiaries engage in the design, development, manufacture, marketing, sale, and support of computer systems and services worldwide. It offers desktop PCs and workstations; servers and networking products; laptop computers; and storage solutions, including storage area networks, network-attached storage, direct-attached storage, disk and tape backup systems, and removable disk backup. The company also provides third party software, which include operating systems, business and office applications, anti-virus and related security software, and entertainment software, as well as peripherals, including software titles, printers, flat panel monitors and projectors, televisions, laptop accessories, networking and wireless products, digital cameras, power adapters, and scanners. In addition, it offers infrastructure consulting services, deployment services, asset recovery and recycling services, training services, support services, and

managed services. Further, the company provides various financing alternatives, asset management services, and other customer financial services. Its customers include large corporate, government, healthcare, and education accounts, as well as small-to-medium businesses and individual consumers. The company sells its products and services directly to customers through sales representatives, telephone-based sales, and online at www.dell.com, as well as through various indirect sales channels. Dell, Inc. was founded in 1984 and is headquartered in Round Rock, Texas.

Key Statistics

Dell develops, manufactures, and sells personal computers and other computer-related products including servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals and televisions.

Dell, Inc. and its subsidiaries engage in the design, development, manufacture, marketing, sale, and support of various computer systems and services worldwide. It offers various products, including desktop computer systems and workstations; mobility products that consist of notebook computers, mobile workstations, and MP3 players; software and peripherals, such as printers

PepsiCo Headquarters: 700 Anderson Hill Road Purchase, NY 10577 Employees: 185,000 CEO: Indra Nooyi Website: http://www.pepsico.com Stock Symbol: PEP Career Page PepsiCo is one of the world's leading producers of snack foods and beverages including Pepsi soda. Its principal businesses include: Frito-Lay snacks, Pepsi-Cola beverages, Gatorade sports drinks, Tropicana juices and Quaker foods. PepsiCo brands are available in nearly 200 countries and territories. Major Frito-Lay products include Lay's potato chips, Doritos tortilla chips, Tostitos tortilla chips, Cheetos cheese flavored snacks, Fritos corn chips, Ruffles potato chips, Rold Gold pretzels, Sun Chips multigrain snacks, Munchies snack mix, Lay's Stax potato crisps, Cracker Jack candy coated popcorn and Go Snacks. Frito-Lay also sells a variety of branded dips, Quaker Fruit & Oatmeal bars, Quaker Quakes corn and rice snacks, Grandma's cookies, nuts and crackers. Pepsi beverage brands include Mountain Dew, Diet Pepsi, Gatorade, Tropicana Pure Premium, Aquafina water, Sierra Mist, Mug, Tropicana juice drinks, Propel, SoBe, Slice, Dole, Tropicana Twister and Tropicana Season's Best. For fiscal 2007, PepsiCo had record revenues of $39 billion. PepsiCo World Headquarters is located in Purchase, NY, approximately 45 minutes from New York City. The sevenbuilding headquarters complex was designed by Edward Durrell Stone, one of America's foremost architects. The building occupies 10 acres of a 144-acre complex that includes the Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Gardens, a worldacclaimed sculpture collection in a garden setting. The collection of works is focused on major twentieth century art, and features works by masters such as Auguste Rodin, Henri Laurens, Henry Moore, Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Arnaldo Pomodoro and Claes Oldenberg. The gardens originally were designed by the world famous garden planner, Russell Page, and have been extended by François Goffinet. The grounds are open to the public, and a visitor's booth is in operation during the spring and summer.

In October, PepsiCo announced it would close six plants and cut 3,300 jobs worldwide. The moves could save the company $1.2 billion over the next three years

History Many of PepsiCo's brand names are more than 100-years-old, but the corporation is relatively young. PepsiCo was founded in 1965 through the merger of Pepsi-Cola and Frito-Lay. Tropicana was acquired in 1998 and PepsiCo merged with The Quaker Oats Company, including Gatorade, in 2001. PepsiCo's snack food operations had their start in 1932 when two separate events took place. In San Antonio, TX, Elmer Doolin bought the recipe for an unknown food product -- a corn chip -- and started an entirely new industry. The product was Fritos brand corn chips, and his firm became the Frito Company. That same year in Nashville, TN, Herman W. Lay started a business distributing potato chips. Mr. Lay later bought the company that supplied him with product and changed its name to H.W. Lay Company. The Frito Company and H.W. Lay Company merged in 1961 to become Frito-Lay, Inc.PepsiCo's beverage business was founded 1898 by Caleb Bradham, a New Bern, North Carolina druggist, who first formulated Pepsi-Cola.

Our History

PepsiCo is a world leader in convenient snacks, foods and beverages with revenues of more than $39 billion and over 185,000 employees. Take a journey through our past and ompany Profile: Pepsico Ads by Google Kotak Easy Online Trading Trading Facilities For Beginners. Research & SMS Alerts Reduce Risks. KotakSecurities.in

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Pepsico is one of the largest companies there is that is engaged in the food, beverage, and snack industries. Their address is 700 Anderson Hill Road, Purchase, N.Y. 10577. Their phone number is 914-253-2000 and their fax number is 914-253-2070. Their stock symbol is PEP and they are listed on the NYSE. The company URL is http://www.pepsico.com/. Business Summary: PepsiCo, Inc. is engaged in the snack food, soft drink, juice, and fast food franchise businesses. The Company, through its subsidiaries, markets, sells and distributes various snacks in the United States and internationally, manufactures concentrates of Pepsi, Mountain Dew and other brands for sale to franchised bottlers in the United States and international markets and produces, markets, sells and distributes juices under several Tropicana trademarks in the United States and internationally. Pepsico’s domestic snack food business is conducted by Frito-Lay North America, and its international snack food business is conducted through Frito-Lay International. The Company's soft drink business operates as the Pepsi-Cola Company and is comprised of two business units, Pepsi-Cola North America (PCNA) and Pepsi-Cola International (PCI). In December 2000, the Company announced an agreement under which a subsidiary of PepsiCo will merge with The Quaker Oats Company, and Quaker will become a wholly owned subsidiary of PepsiCo. Quaker is a large worldwide marketer of foods and

beverages. It manufactures and markets Gatorade thirst quencher, along with hot cereals, pancake syrups, grainbased snacks, cornmeal, hominy grits and value-added rice products. The proposed merger is subject to certain closing conditions, including approval by shareholders of both companies and regulatory approvals. The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2001. Pepsico also operates several food franchises including Pizza Hut, KFC, and Taco Bell. Financial Summary: PepsiCo, Inc. manufactures, markets and sells soft drinks and concentrates (Pepsi-Cola, Mountain Dew, Slice, etc.), snack foods (Frito-Lay) and Tropicana branded juices. For the 12 weeks ended 3/24/01, net sales increased 8% to $4.54 billion. Net income increased 18% to $498 million. Revenues benefitted from volume gains across all divisions. Net income also reflects an increased gross profit due to higher effective net pricing. (See above for other operations). Officers of the company: …Steve Reinemund,52, Chairman, CEO …Indra Noovi, 45, Pres, CFO …Roger Enrico, 56, Vice Chairman …Matthew McKenna, 50, Sr. VP and Treasurer …Peter Bridgman, 48, Sr. VP and Controller

Employee growth: 10.1%

The PepsiCo challenge (to keep

Maruti Suzuki India Ltd - Company Profile Snapshot

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Company Profile: Maruti Suzuki India Ltd Ticker: 532500 Exchanges: BOM 2008 Sales: 181,040,000,00 0 Major Industry: Automotive Sub Industry: Diversified Automotive Mfrs. Country: INDIA Employees: 7090

Business Description Maruti Suzuki India Ltd Formerly known as Maruti Udyog Limited. The Group's principal activity is to manufacture, purchase and sale of Motor Vehicles and Spare parts. The Group is a subsidiary of Suzuki Motor Corporation. The other activities of the Group comprises of facilitation of Pre-Owned Car Sales, Fleet Management and Car Financing. The Group also provides services like framing of customized car policies, economical leasing of cars, maintenance management, registration and insurance management, emergency assistance and accident management. The product range includes ten basic models with more than 50 variants. The Group has operations in over 1220 cities with more than 2628 outlets and also exports cars to other countries. Maruti Suzuki India Limited Company Profile

Maruti Suzuki India is India's leading maker of automobiles. Through a partnership with Suzuki, the company makes models such as the Alto, Gypsy, and Swift. One of its its newest models, the Swift Dzire, is a compact, entry-level sedan that offers a variety of modern features. In addition to domestic sales, Maruti Suzuki also exports select models to many European markets. The company has two manufacturing facilities. Its Gurgaon facility near New Delhi actually consists of three integrated plants and has an annual capacity of about 350,000 cars. Its Manesar facility was built in 2007 and will eventually have an annual capacity of 300,000. Maruti Suzuki enjoys just over a 50% share of its domestic market Contact Information

Address: Phone: Fax:

11th Fl., Jeevan Prakash, 25, Kasturba Gandhi Marg New Delhi 110 001, India +91-11-23316831 +91-11-23318754

Financial Highlights

Fiscal Year End:

Key People

• Chairman: Shinzo Nakanishi • Managing Director and CEO: Jagdish Khattar • Director Marketing and Sales: Shuji Oishi

Industry Information

Sector: Consumer Goods Industry: Auto Manufacturers - Major

March

Top Competitors

• • •

Bajaj Auto Limited Hyundai Motor Company Tata Motors Limited (ttm

This is a list of company names with their name origins explained. Some origins are disputed.

Content Top · 0–9 · A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T s UVWXYZ

[edit] # •

20th Century Fox – Film studio; formed in 1935 through the merger of William Fox's Fox Film, and Twentieth Century Pictures.[1]

•

23andme – Using the 23 pairs of chromosomes that make up each person's genome, the company helps individuals make sense of their own (me) genome.[2]

•

37signals – Web development company; named for the 37 radiotelescope signals identified by astronomer Paul Horowitz as potential messages from extraterrestrial intelligence.[3]

•

3Com – Network technology producer; the three coms are computer, communication, and compatibility.[4]

•

3M – from the company's original name, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company.[5]

•

7-Eleven – Convenience stores; renamed from "U-Tote'm" in 1946 to reflect their newly extended hours, 7:00 a.m. until 11:00 p.m.[6]

[edit] A •

A&M Records – named after founders Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss[7]

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A&P – from Atlantic & Pacific in Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company, a U.S.-based supermarket chain.

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A&W Root Beer – named after founders Roy Allen and Frank Wright[8]

•

ABN AMRO – in the 1960s, the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij (Dutch Trading Society; 1824) and De Twentsche Bank merged to form the Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN; General Bank of the Netherlands); in 1966, the Amsterdamsche Bank and the Rotterdamsche Bank merged to form the Amro Bank; in 1991, ABN and Amro Bank merged to form ABN AMRO.

•

Accenture – from "Accent on the future". The name Accenture was proposed by a company employee in Norway as part of an internal name finding process (BrandStorming). Before January 1, 2001, the company was called Andersen Consulting.[9]

•

Adecco – named from the merger of Swiss staffing company Adia with French staffing company Ecco.[10]

•

Adidas – from the name of the founder Adolf (Adi) Dassler.[11]

•

Adobe Systems – from the Adobe Creek that ran behind the house of cofounder John Warnock.[12]

•

Ahold – a holding company of Albert Heijn and other supermarkets. For its 100th anniversary in 1987, Ahold was granted the title of Koninklijke ("Royal" in Dutch) by the Monarchy of the Netherlands, changing its name to Koninklijke Ahold (Royal Ahold).[13]

•

Akai – named for its founder, Masukichi Akai.[14]

•

Akamai – from the Hawaiian word akamai meaning smart or clever;[15] the company defines it as "intelligent, clever and cool".[16]

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AKZO – named from the 1969 merger of Algemene Kunstzijde Unie (AKU) and Koninklijke Zout Organon (KZO).[17]

•

Alcatel-Lucent – Alcatel was named from Société Alsacienne de Constructions Atomiques, de Télécomunications et d'Electronique.[18] It took over Lucent Technologies in 2006.

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Alcoa – Aluminum Company of America.[19]

•

Aldi – portmanteau for Albrecht (name of the founders) and discount

•

Alfa Romeo – the company was originally known as ALFA, an acronym for Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili. When Nicola Romeo bought ALFA in 1915, his surname was appended.

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Alstom – set up as Alsthom in 1928 by Société Alsacienne de Constructions Mécaniques and Compagnie Française Thomson-Houston, it changed the spelling to Alstom in 1997.

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AltaVista – Spanish for "high view".

•

ALZA – from the name of the founder Alex Zaffaroni.

•

Amazon.com – founder Jeff Bezos renamed the company Amazon (from the earlier name of Cadabra.com) after the world's most voluminous river, the Amazon. He saw the potential for a larger volume of sales in an online (as opposed to a bricks and mortar) bookstore. (Alternative: Amazon was chosen to cash in on the popularity of Yahoo, which listed entries alphabetically.)

•

AmBev – American Beverage Company, the largest Brazilian beverage company and fourth in the world. In 2004 it merged with Interbrew to create Inbev

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AMC Theatres – American Multi-Cinema: the company pioneered multi-screen cinemas.[20]

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AMD – Advanced Micro Devices

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Amiga Corporation - The original developers of the 16-bit Amiga computer chose the name, which means a 'female friend' in Spanish and Portuguese, because it sounded friendly, and because it came before rivals (Apple Inc. and Atari) alphabetically[21].

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Amoco – AMerican Oil COmpany – now part of BP

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Amstrad – Amstrad Consumer Electronics plc was founded by Sir Alan Michael Sugar in the UK. The name is a contraction of Alan Michael Sugar Trading.

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AOL – from America Online. The company was founded in 1983 as Quantum Computer Services.

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Apache – according to the project's 1997 FAQ: "The Apache group was formed around a number of people who provided patch files that had been written for NCSA httpd 1.3. The result after combining them was A PAtCHy server."[22]

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Apple – For the favorite fruit of co-founder Steve Jobs and/or for the time he worked at an apple orchard, and to distance itself from the cold, unapproachable, complicated imagery created by other computer companies at the time – which had names such as IBM, DEC, Cincom and Tesseract

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Apricot Computers – early UK-based microcomputer company founded by ACT (Applied Computer Techniques), a business software and services supplier. The company wanted a "fruity" name (Apple and Acorn were popular brands) that included the letters A, C and T. Apricot fit the bill.

•

Arby's – the enunciation of the initials of its founders, the Raffel Brothers. The partners wanted to use the name Big Tex, but were unsuccessful in negotiating with the Akron businessman who was already using the name. So, Forrest said, "We came up with Arby's, which stands for R.B., the initials of Raffel Brothers, although I guess customers might think the initials stand for roast beef."

•

Arcelor – created in 2001 by a merger of Arbed (Luxembourg), Aceralia (Spain) and Usinor (France) with the ambition of becoming a major player in the steel industry.

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Areva – named from the region of Ávila in northern Spain, location of the Arevalo abbey. Arevalo was shorted to Arevo.

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Aricent – communications software company name created in 2006 by combining two words "arise" and "ascent".

•

ARM Limited – named after the microprocessor developed by small UK company Acorn as a successor to the 6502 used in its BBC Microcomputer. ARM originally stood for Acorn Risc Machine. When the company was spun off with backing from Apple and VTI, this was changed to Advanced Risc Machines.

•

Arm & Hammer – based on the arm and hammer of Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and metalworking. It was previously the logo of the Vulcan Spice Mills in Brooklyn. When James Church, the son of Church & Dwight founder Austin Church, came to Church and Dwight from Vulcan Spice Mills, he brought the logo with him.[23]

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ARP – company that made analog synthesizers in the 1970s, named after founder Alan Robert Pearlman.

•

Artis (zoo in Amsterdam) – from the Latin phrase, Natura Artis Magistra, or Nature is Art's Teacher

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Asda – Asda Stores Limited was founded as Associated Dairies & Farm Stores Ltd in 1949. However the formation of the Asda name occurred in 1965 with the merger of the Asquith chain of three supermarkets and Associated Dairies; Asda is an abbreviation of Asquith and Dairies, a large UK supermarket chain that is now a subsidiary of Wal-Mart.

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ASICS – an acronym for Anima Sana In Corpore Sano, which, translated from Latin, means "Healthy soul in a healthy body". Originally the citation is mens sana in corpore sano, but MSICS does not sound as good.

•

Ask.com – search engine formerly named after Jeeves, the gentleman's gentleman (valet, not butler) in P. G. Wodehouse's series of books. Ask Jeeves was shortened to Ask in 2006.

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Asus – named after Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology. The first three letters of the word were dropped to get a high position in alphabetical listings. An Asus company named Pegatron, using the spare letters, was spun off in 2008.[24]

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Aston Martin – from the "Aston Hill" races (near Aston Clinton) where the company was founded, and the surname of Lionel Martin, the company's founder.

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AT&T – the American Telephone and Telegraph Corporation officially changed its name to AT&T in the 1990s.

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Atari – named from the board game Go. "Atari" is a Japanese word to describe a position where an opponent's stones are in danger of being captured. It is similar, though not identical, to "check" in chess. The original games company was American but wanted a Japanese-sounding name.

•

ATI – Array Technologies Incorporated

•

ATS – Auto Technik Spezialerzeugnisse, a German company producing light alloy wheels and motor parts, which ran its own Formula 1 racing team in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

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Audi – Latin translation of the German name "Horch". The founder August Horch left the company after five years, but still wanted to manufacture cars. Since the original "Horch" company was still there, he called his new company Audi, the Latin form of his last name. In English it is: "hark!".

[edit] B •

B&Q – from the initials of its founders, Richard Block and David Quayle

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Bang & Olufsen – from the names of its founders, Peter Bang and Svend Olufsen, who met at a School of Engineering in Denmark.

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Bally – originally Lion Manufacturing, the company changed its name to Bally after the success of its first popular pinball machine, Ballyhoo.

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Banesto – from Banco Español de Crédito (Spanish Credit Bank)

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BASF – from Badische Anilin und Soda Fabriken. Anilin and Soda were the first products. Badisch refers to the location in the state of Baden, Germany (Black Forest region).

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Bauknecht – founded as an electrotechnical workshop in 1919 by Gottlob Bauknecht, and now a Whirlpool brand.

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Bayer – named after Friedrich Bayer, who founded the company in 1863.

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BBC – British Broadcasting Corporation, originally British Broadcasting Company.

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BBVA – Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria.

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BCC Research – from the company's former name, Business Communications Company.

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BEA Systems – from the first initial of each of the company's three founders: Bill Coleman, Ed Scott and Alfred Chuang.

•

Ben & Jerry's – named after Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, who founded an ice cream parlor in 1978 after completing a correspondence course on ice cream making from Pennsylvania State University. The company, Ben & Jerry's Homemade Holdings, Inc. was later taken over by Unilever.

•

BenQ – Bringing Enjoyment and Quality to life[25]

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BHP – Broken Hill Proprietary, named after the town of Broken Hill, where BHP was founded (now BHP Billiton)

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BIC Corporation – the pen company was named after one of its founders, Marcel Bich. He dropped the final h to avoid a potentially inappropriate English pronunciation of the name.

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Black & Decker – named after founders S. Duncan Black and Alonzo G. Decker.

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Blaupunkt – Blaupunkt ("Blue dot") was founded in 1923 under the name "Ideal". Its core business was the manufacturing of headphones. If the headphones came through quality tests, the company would give the headphones a blue dot. The headphones quickly became known as the blue dots or blaue Punkte. The quality symbol would become a trademark and the trademark would become the company name in 1938.

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BMW – Bayerische Motoren Werke (Bavarian Motor Factories).

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Boeing – named after founder William E. Boeing. It was originally called Pacific Aero Products Co.

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BOSCH (full company name Robert Bosch GmbH) - named after founder Robert Bosch. A German diversified technology-based corporation.

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BSNL – from Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (India Communications Corporation Limited).

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BP – formerly British Petroleum, now BP. (The slogan "Beyond Petroleum" has incorrectly been taken to refer to the company's new name following its rebranding effort in 2000.)

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BRAC – Bangladesh Rural & Advancement Committee, world's largest NGO (non governmental organization).

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Bridgestone – named after founder Shojiro Ishibashi. The surname Ishibashi (石橋) means "stone bridge", or "bridge of stone".

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Brine, Corp. – sporting goods company named after founder, W.H. Brine. It was taken over by New Balance in 2006.

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BT – formerly British Telecom (from BT Group, formerly British Telecommunications plc.)

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Bull – Compagnie des machines Bull was founded in Paris to exploit the patents for punched card machines taken out by Norwegian engineer Fredrik Rosing Bull.

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Burroughs Corporation – founded in 1886 as the American Arithmometer Company and later renamed after the adding machine invented by William Seward Burroughs. The company took over Sperry Corporation and became Unisys.

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Bultaco – Spanish company of motorcycles, which disappeared in the 1980s. Its name is based on the name of its founder, Paco Bultó.

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BHEL- Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited, a government of India company.

[edit] C •

CA – Computer Associates was founded in 1976 as Computer Associates International, Inc. by Charles Wang

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C&A – named after the brothers Clemens and August Brenninkmeijer, who founded a textile company called C&A in the Netherlands in 1841.

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Cadillac – named after the 18th century French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, founder of Detroit, Michigan. Cadillac is a small town in the South of France.

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CAE – originally Canadian Aviation Electronics

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Canon – Originally (1933) Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory the new name (1935) derived from the name of the company's first camera, the Kwanon, in turn named after the Japanese name of the Buddhist bodhisattva of mercy.

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Caprabo – Catalan supermarkets, founded by Carbó, Prats and Bonet.

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Carrefour – chain of supermarkets and hypermarkets which started with a store near a crossroads (carrefour in French) in Annecy.

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Caterpillar – Originally Holt Tractor Co, merged with Best Tractor Co. in 1925. A company photographer exclaimed aloud of a Holt tractor that the tracks' movement resembled a caterpillar moving along the ground. The name stuck.

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Casio – from the name of its founder, Kashio Tadao, who had set up the company Kashio Seisakujo as a subcontractor factory.

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CBS – Columbia Broadcasting System

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CGI Group – from the first letters of Information Management Consultant in French (Conseillers en Gestion et Informatique).

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Chevrolet – named after company co-founder Louis Chevrolet, a Swiss-born auto racer. The company was merged into General Motors in 1917 and survives only as a brand name.

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Chello – a Dutch internet service provider, its name was originally pronounced 'say hello' (in Dutch the letter C at the beginning of a word is pronounced as 'say'). This didn't catch on and now it is pronounced "cello" (as in the string instrument).

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Chrysler – named after the company founder, Walter P. Chrysler.

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Ciba Geigy – CIBA, named from Chemical Industry Basel (after Basel in Switzerland), merged with a company named after its founder Johann Rudolf Geigy-Merian. It became Novartis (below) after a merger with Sandoz.

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CiCi's Pizza – from the first letters of the last names of the founders of the franchise (Joe Croce and Mike Cole).

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Cigna – CIGNA was formed in 1982 through the combination of Insurance Company of North America (INA) and Connecticut General (CG). The name is combination of the letters of the predecessor companies, CG and INA.[26]

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Cincom – originally called United Computer Systems, which was similar to several other software and services companies of the day. Two of the three founders visited Philco (Philadelphia Company), and this inspired them to create a new company name derived from Cincinnati (where it was based) and Computer (its business).

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Cisco – short for San Francisco. It has also been suggested that it was "CISco": Computer Information Services was the department at Stanford University where the founders worked.

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Citroën – named after André-Gustave Citroën (1878–1935), a French entrepreneur of Dutch descent. He was the fifth and last child of the Dutch Jewish diamond merchant Levie Citroen and Mazra Kleinmann (of Warsaw, Poland). The Citroen family moved to Paris from Amsterdam in 1873 where the name changed to Citroën.

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Coca-Cola – derived from the coca leaves and kola nuts used as flavoring. Coca-Cola creator John S. Pemberton changed the 'K' of kola to 'C' to make the name look better.

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Coleco – began as the Connecticut Leather Company.

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Colgate-Palmolive – formed from a merger of soap manufacturers Colgate & Company and Palmolive-Peet. Peet was dropped in 1953. Colgate was named after William Colgate, an English immigrant, who set up a starch, soap and candle business in New York City in 1806. Palmolive was named for the two oils (Palm and Olive) used in its manufacture.

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COLT – from City Of London Telecom

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Comcast – from communications and broadcast.

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Compaq – from computer and "pack" to denote a small integral object; or: Compatibility And Quality; or: from the company's first product, the very compact Compaq Portable.

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COMSAT – a contraction of communications satellites. This American digital telecommunications and satellite company was founded during the era of U.S. President John F. Kennedy era to develop the technology.

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ConocoPhillips – formed from the merger of Conoco (from Continental Oil Company) and the Phillips Petroleum Company.

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Copersucar – Brazilian production cooperative in sugar and alcohol, its name is a contraction of Cooperativa de Açucar e Álcool.

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Corel – from Cowpland Research Laboratory, after the name of the company's founder, Dr. Michael Cowpland.[27]

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Cosworth – automotive engineering company named after company founders Mike Costin and Keith Duckworth.

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CPFL – Companhia Paulista de Força e Luz (São Paulo Company of Light and Power), one of the largest in Brazil, based in Campinas.

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Crabtree & Evelyn – toiletry company named after gardener John Evelyn, and the tree that bears Crabapples

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Cray – supercomputer company named after its founder, Seymour Cray.

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CRC Press – originally Chemical Rubber Company

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Cromemco – early microcomputer company in Silicon Valley (circa 1975– 198?) founded by two PhD students who once lived at Stanford University's Crothers Memorial Hall (a dormitory).

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Cutco – Cooking Utensils Company.[28]

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CVS – Convenience Value Service.

[edit] D •

Daewoo – company founder Kim Woo Chong called it Daewoo which means "Great House" or "Great Universe" in Korean.

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DAF Trucks – from 1932 the company's name was Van Doorne's Aanhangwagen Fabriek (Van Doorne's Trailer Factory). In 1949 the company started making trucks, trailers and buses and changed the name into Van Doorne's Automobiel Fabriek (Van Doorne's Automobile Factory).

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Daihatsu – the first kanji from "Osaka" (大坂, the kanji is here pronounced dai) and "engine" (発動機, the first kanji is hatsu). Engine manufacturers were listed on the Tokyo and Osaka Stock Exchanges, and their names shortened to the first kanji. (The company listed on the Tokyo exchange is Tohatsu.)

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Danone (Dannon in the U.S.) – Isaac Carasso in Barcelona made his first yoghourts with the nickname of his first son Daniel (DAN-ONE)

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Datsun – first called DAT, from the initials of its financiers Den, Aoyama and Takeuchi. Soon changed to DATSON to imply a smaller version of their original car, then (as SON can means "loss" in Japanese) again to DATSUN when they were acquired by Nissan.

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Debian – project founder Ian Murdock named it after himself and his girlfriend, Debra.

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DEC – Digital Equipment Corporation, a pioneering American minicomputer manufacturer founded by Ken Olsen and taken over by Compaq, before Compaq was merged into Hewlett-Packard (HP). It was generally called DEC ("deck"), but later tried to rebrand itself as Digital.

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DEKA – named after its founder Dean Kamen, developer of the Segway, iBOT, HomeChoice Dialysis and other products.

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Delhaize – named after its founders, Jules Delhaize and his brothers, who originated from Charleroi (Belgium). They opened the first European selfservice "supermarket" in Elsene, near Brussels.

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Dell – named after its founder, Michael Dell. The company changed its name from Dell Computer in 2003.

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Denning & Fourcade, Inc. – interior designer company named after its founders Robert Denning and Vincent Fourcade in 1960.

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DHL – named after its founders, Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom, and Robert Lynn.

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Digg, Inc.- Kevin Rose's friend David Prager (The Screen Savers, This Week in Tech) originally wanted to call the site "Diggnation", but Kevin wanted a simpler name. He chose the name "Digg", because users are able to "dig" stories, out of those submitted, up to the front page. The site was called "Digg" instead of "Dig" because the domain name "dig.com" was previously registered, by Walt Disney Internet Group. "Diggnation" would eventually be used as the title of Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht's weekly podcast discussing popular stories from Digg.

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Digi-Key – electronic component distributor whose name is derived from founder Dr. Ronald Stordahl's amateur radio telegraphic keyer, the "IC Keyer Kit", which utilized digital integrated circuits.

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Dixons – commonly-used abbreviation for DSG International plc (Dixons Stores Group), a UK-based retailer. The company was founded in 1937 by Charles Kalms and Michael Mindel. When opening their first photographic shop in Southend, they only had room for six letters on the fascia, and chose the name Dixons from the phone book.

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DKNY – Donna Karan New York.

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Dow – named after its founder, Herbert Henry Dow.

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Duane Reade – named after Duane and Reade Streets in lower Manhattan, where the chain's first warehouse was located.[29]

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Dynegy – the Natural Gas Clearinghouse changed its name in 1998 to reflect its self-described traits as a dynamic energy company. "Dynergy" had already been taken by a German health foods company.

[edit] E •

EA Games – EA is from Electronic Arts. The company was founded in May 1982 as Amazin' Software and changed its name to Electronic Arts in October the same year.

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eBay – Pierre Omidyar, who had created the Auction Web trading website, had formed a web consulting concern called Echo Bay Technology Group. "Echo Bay" didn't refer to the town in Nevada, "It just sounded cool", Omidyar reportedly said. Echo Bay Mines Limited, a gold mining company, had already taken EchoBay.com, so Omidyar registered what (at the time) he thought was the second best name: eBay.com.

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Edumed – Education in Medicine, reflecting its first area of activity, distance education in medicine

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EDS – Electronic Data Systems, founded in 1962 by former IBM salesman Ross Perot. According to the company history:[30] "He chose Electronic Data Systems from potential names he scribbled on a pledge envelope during a service at Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas."

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Eidos – named from a Greek word meaning "species". The company became well-known for its Tomb Raider series of games.

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Eletropaulo – One of the largest Brazilian companies in electricity generation and distribution, its name derives from Companhia de Eletricidade de São Paulo.

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Embraer – Brazilian aircraft manufacturer, its name is an abbreviation of Empresa Brasileira de Aeronáutica (Brazilian Aeronautics Company).

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EMBRAPA – Brazilian state agricultural research and development company, its name is an abbreviation of Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (Brazilian Agriculture Research Company).

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EMBRATEL – an abbreviation of Empresa Brasileira de Telecomunicações (Brazilian Telecommunications Company). Brazil's largest telecommunications company, it was a state monopoly until 1992 when it was privatized and sold to MCI, then later resold to Telmex.

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EMC Corporation – named from the initials of the founders, Richard Egan and Roger Marino. There has long been a rumor that another partner provided the third letter (C). Other reports indicate the C stands for Company. EMC adopted the EMC² notation to refer to Einstein's famous equation, E = mc².

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EMI – formerly Electric and Musical Industries Ltd.

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Emporis – Empor comes from the German and means "aloft, rising". One of the world's largest providers of data concerning buildings.

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Equifax – Equitable and factual

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ESPN – Entertainment and Sports Programming Network

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ESRI – Environmental Systems Research Institute, the first geographic information system (GIS) software company founded by Jack and Laura Dangermond in Redlands, California, in 1969

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Epson – Epson Seiko Corporation, the Japanese printer and peripheral manufacturer, was named from "Son of Electronic Printer"

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Esso – the enunciation of the initials S.O. in Standard Oil of New Jersey.

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Exxon – a name contrived by Esso (Standard Oil of New Jersey) in the early 1970s to create a neutral but distinctive label for the company. Within days, Exxon was being called the "double cross company" but this eventually subsided. (Esso is a trademark of ExxonMobil.) Esso had to change its name in the U.S. because of restrictions dating to the 1911 Standard Oil antitrust decision.

[edit] F •

FÁS – abbreviation for Foras Áiseanna Saothair (Labour Facilities Foundation). Fás means grow in Irish.

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Fair Isaac Corporation – named after founders Bill Fair and Earl Isaac.

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Fazer – Finnish food company named after its founder, Karl Fazer.

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FCUK – French Connection United Kingdom.

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FedEx – abbreviation of Federal Express Corporation, the company's original name.[31]

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Fegime – abbreviation for "Fédération Européenne des Grossistes Indépendants" (European Federation of Independent Electrical Wholesalers).

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Ferrari – from the name of its founder, Enzo Ferrari.

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Fiat – acronym of Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino (Italian Automobile Factory of Turin)

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Finnair – from "Finland" and "air". Originally called "Aero Osakeyhtiö", which led to its international flight code, "AY".

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Firestone – named after its founder, Harvey Firestone.

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Five Guys – American restaurant chain founded by "five guys" — Jerry Murrell and his four sons. The "five guys" would later become the Murrell sons, after Jerry and his wife Janie had a fifth son two years after opening their first restaurant.[32][33]

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Fluke – named after its founder, John Fluke, Sr.

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Ford Motor Company – named after its founder, Henry Ford, who introduced automobile mass production in 1914.

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Forrester Research – from the family name of the mother of the founder George Forrester Colony.

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FranklinCovey – named after Benjamin Franklin and Stephen Covey. The company was formed from the 1997 merger of FranklinQuest and the Covey Leadership Center.

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Fuji – named after Mount Fuji, the highest mountain in Japan.

[edit] G •

Garmin – named after its founders, Gary Burrell and Dr. Min Kao.

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Gartner – named after its founder, Gideon Gartner, who left the firm in 1992 to start Giga (named from Gideon Gartner).

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Gatti's Pizza – Gatti was the maiden name of Pat Eure, wife of company founder Jim Eure.

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GCap Media – named after the merger of the GWR Group and Capital Radio Group in May 2005. GWR was launched in 1985 after the merger of Radio West and Wiltshire Radio.

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Genentech – from Genetic Engineering Technology.

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GEICO – from Government Employees Insurance Company

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Glaxo – a dried milk company set up in Bunnythorpe, New Zealand, by Joseph Edward Nathan. The company wanted to use the name "Lacto" but it was similar to some already in use. Glaxo evolved and was registered on 27 October 1906. GlaxoSmithKline was a 2000 merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham

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Glock GmbH – named after its founder, Gaston Glock.

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Google – an originally accidental misspelling of the word googol and settled upon because google.com was unregistered. Googol was proposed to reflect the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available online.

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Grey Global Group – an advertising and marketing agency supposed to have derived its name from the colour of the walls of its first office.

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Grundig – named after its founder, radio dealer-turned-manufacturer Max Grundig, in 1945.

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Gulfstream Aerospace – named after the Gulf Stream current that starts in the Gulf of Mexico and crosses the Atlantic. The company traces its origins to the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, which was sold and renamed in 1985.

[edit] H •

Häagen-Dazs – Name was invented in 1961 by ice-cream makers Reuben and Rose Mattus of the Bronx "to convey an aura of the old-world traditions and craftsmanship".[34] The name has no meaning.

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Haier – Chinese 海 "sea" and 尔 (a transliteration character; also means "you" in Literary Chinese).

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H&M – named from Hennes & Mauritz. In 1947, Swedish businessman Erling Persson established Hennes, a ladies' clothing store, in Västerås, Sweden. "Hennes" is Swedish for "hers". In 1968, Persson bought the Stockholm premises and inventory of a hunting equipment store called Mauritz Widforss. The inventory included a collection of men's clothing, which prompted Persson to expand into menswear.

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Haribo – from the name of the founder and the German home town of the company: Hans Riegel, Bonn.

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Harman Kardon – named after its founders Dr. Sidney Harman and Bernard Kardon.

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Harpo Productions – production company founded by Oprah Winfrey. Harpo is Oprah backwards.

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Hasbro – founded by Henry and Helal Hassenfeld, the Hassenfeld Brothers.

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HBOS – UK-based banking company formed by the merger of the Halifax and the Bank of Scotland.

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HCL – Hindustan Computers Ltd, Indian software company founded by Shiv Nadar.

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Hess Corporation – named after its founder Leon Hess.

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HP – Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whether the company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.

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Hitachi – old place name, literally "sunrise"

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HMV – from "His Master's Voice", which appeared in 1899 as the title of a painting of Nipper, a Jack Russell terrier, listening to a gramophone.

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Hoechst – from the name of a district in Frankfurt.

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Honda – from the name of its founder, Soichiro Honda.

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Honeywell – from the name of Mark Honeywell, founder of Honeywell Heating Specialty Co. It later merged with Minneapolis Heat Regulator Company and was finally called Honeywell Inc. in 1963.

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Hospira – the name, selected by the company's employees, is derived from the words hospital, spirit, inspire and the Latin word spero, which means hope. It expresses the hope and optimism that are critical in the healthcare industry.

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Hotmail – Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came up with the business plan for the mail service he tried all kinds of names ending in 'mail' and finally settled for Hotmail as it included the letters "HTML" – the markup language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casing. (If you click on Hotmail's 'mail' tab, you will still find "HoTMaiL" in the URL.)

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H&R Block – after the founders, brothers Henry W. and Richard Bloch (with "Bloch" changed to "Block" to avoid mispronunciation).

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HSBC – Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation.

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Hyundai – connotes the sense of "the present age" or "modernity" in Korean.

[edit] I •

IBM – named by Tom (Thomas John) Watson Sr, an ex-employee of National Cash Register (NCR Corporation). To one-up them in all respects, he called his company International Business Machines.

•

ICICI – Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India.

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ICL – abbreviation for International Computers Limited, once the UK's largest computer company but now a service arm of Fujitsu, of Japan.

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IG Farben – Interessen-Gemeinschaft Farbenindustrie AG was so named because the constituent German companies produced dyestuffs among many other chemical compounds. The consortium is most known today for its central participation in the World War II Holocaust, as it made the Zyklon B gas used in the gas chambers.

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Iiyama – manufacturer of monitors and TVs named after the Japanese city, Iiyama.

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IKEA – a composite of the first letters in the Swedish founder Ingvar Kamprad's name in addition to the first letters of the names of the property and the village in which he grew up: Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd.

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InBev – the name was created after the merger of the Belgian company Interbrew with Brazilian Ambev

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Inditex – a Spanish group named from Industria de Diseño Textil (Textile Design Industry).

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Infineon Technologies – derived from Infinity and Aeon. The name was given to Siemens's Semiconductor branch (called Siemens HL or Siemens SC/SSC) when it was spun off.

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Ingenico – electronic payment device manufacturer based in Paris and named from the French Ingenieux Compagnie (Ingenious Company).

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Intel – Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore initially incorporated their company as N M Electronics. Someone suggested Moore Noyce Electronics but it sounded too close to "more noise". Later, Integrated Electronics was proposed but it had already been taken, so they used the initial syllables (INTegrated ELectronics). To avoid potential conflicts with other companies with similar names, Intel purchased the name rights for $15,000 from a company called Intelco. (Source: Intel 15 Years Corporate Anniversary Brochure)

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Ittiam Systems – an Indian company named from the famous philosophical dictum: "I think therefore I am" (Cogito, ergo sum).[35]

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Infosys – An Indian software major. "Information Systems"

[edit] J •

JAL – from Japan Airlines

•

Jat Airways – founded in 1927 as "Aeroput" (Airway in Serbian). From 1947, it was known as JAT (Jugoslovenski Aero Transport). After the break-up of the former Yugoslavia (and after Federal Republic of Yugoslavia changed its name to Serbia and Montenegro), the company kept the name, Jat, but not as an abbreviation.

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JBL – from James B Lansing, an electronics designer

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Johnson & Johnson – Originally a partnership between brothers James Wood Johnson and Edward Mead Johnson in 1885, the addition of brother Robert Wood Johnson I led to formal incorporation as Johnson & Johnson in 1887.

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JVC – Japan Victor Company

[edit] K •

Kawasaki – from the name of its founder, Shozo Kawasaki

•

KFC – short for Kentucky Fried Chicken. It is popularly believed that the company adopted the abbreviated name in 1991 to avoid the unhealthy connotations of the word 'fried'. The rumor that it was because the Commonwealth of Kentucky trademarked the name "Kentucky" is false. Recent commercials have tried to imply that the abbreviation stands for "Kitchen Fresh Chicken".

•

Kenwood Limited – named after Kenneth (Ken) Wood, who founded this kitchenware company as Woodlau Industries in the UK in 1947. It is not related to Kenwood Electronics, which started as Kasuga Radio Co in Japan in 1946 and became Trio Corporation in 1960.

•

Kenworth Truck Company – Kenworth Truck Company was formed in 1923 and is named after the two principal stockholders Harry Kent and Edgar Worthington.

•

Kia Motors – the name "Kia" (起亞) roughly translates as "Rising from Asia" in Hanja.

•

Kinko's – from the college nickname of founder, Paul Orfalea. He was called Kinko because he had curly red hair. The company was bought by FedEx for $2.4 billion in 2004.

•

Kodak – Both the Kodak camera and the name were the invention of founder George Eastman. The letter "K" was a favorite with Eastman; he felt it a strong and incisive letter. He tried out various combinations of words starting and ending with "K". He saw three advantages in the name. It had the merits of a trademark word, would not be mis-pronounced and the name did not resemble anything in the art. There is a misconception that the name was chosen because of its similarity to the sound produced by the shutter of the camera.

•

Komatsu – Japanese construction vehicle manufacturer named from the city of Komatsu, Ishikawa, where it was founded in 1917.

•

Konica – it was earlier known as Konishiroku Kogaku. Konishiroku in turn is the short for Konishiya Rokubeiten which was the first name of the company established by Rokusaburo Sugiura in the 1850s.

•

Korg – named from the surnames of the founders, Tsutomu Katoh and Tadashi Osanai, combined with the letters "rg" from the word organ.

•

KPMG – from the last names of the founders of the firms which combined to form the cooperative: Piet Klijnveld, William Barclay Peat, Roger Mitchell, and Reinhard Goerdeler.[36]

•

Kroger – American supermarket chain named after its founder, Barney Kroger

•

KUKA – Company founded in 1898 in Augsburg, Germany as Keller Und Knappich Augsburg, short KUKA. Today a manufacturer of industrial robots and automation systems and registrated trademark for industrial robots.

•

Kyocera – from Kyoto Ceramics, after Kyoto in Japan.

[edit] L •

Lada – from the name of a Slavic goddess, and used as a trading name by Russian automobile manufacturer AvtoVAZ (АВТОВАЗ in Russian). VAZ is derived from Volzhsky Automobilny Zavod.

•

Lancôme – began in 1935, when its founder, Armand Petitjean, was exploring the ruins of a castle, Le Chateau de Lancôme (Loir-et-Cher) while vacationing in the French countryside. Petitjean's inspiration for the company's symbol, a rose, was the many wild roses growing around the castle.

•

LCL – from Le Crédit Lyonnais. The name change occurred after the bank was involved in a major financial scandal where evidence disappeared in a mysterious fire.

•

Lego – combination of the Danish "leg godt", which means to "play well".[37] Lego also means "I put together" in Latin, but Lego Group claims this is only a coincidence and the etymology of the word is entirely Danish. Years before the little plastic brick was invented, Lego manufactured wooden toys.

•

Lenovo Group – a portmanteau of "Le-" (from former name Legend) and "novo", pseudo-Latin for "new". This Chinese company took over IBM's PC division.

•

Level 3 Communications – "Level 3" is a reference to the network layer of the OSI model.

•

LG – from the combination of two popular Korean brands, Lucky and Goldstar. (In Mexico, publicists explained the name change as an abbreviation to Linea Goldstar, Spanish for Goldstar Line)

•

Lionbridge – the word "localisation", which is the service this company offers, is often shortened to L10N. That is the first letter of the word and the last letter of the word, with 10 letters missing in between, hence L 10 N, which looks like lion. Bridge is the second part of the word as translation 'bridges' gap between people and markets that do not have a common language.

•

Lionhead Studios – games studio named after Mark Webley's pet hamster, which died a week before the company was founded.[38] Webley worked for Bullfrog, and co-founded Lionhead with Peter Molyneux, Tim Rance and Steve Jackson in July 1997. Microsoft bought the company in April 2006.

•

Lockheed Martin – Aerospace manufacturer, a combination of Lockheed Corporation and Martin Marietta, which is a combination of Glenn L. Martin Company and American-Marietta Corporation.

•

LoJack – "LoJack" (the stolen-vehicle recovery system) is a pun on the word "hijack" (to steal a vehicle).

•

Longines – In 1862 the new company "Ancienne Maison Auguste Agassiz, Ernest Francillon, Successeur" was born. At that time watchmaking in the area used the skills of people working outside the "comptoir d'établissage", often at home. In 1866 Ernest Francillon bought two plots of land on the right bank of the river Suze at the place called "Les Longines" and brought all of the watchmaking skills under one roof. This was the first "Longines factory".

•

Lonsdale – boxing equipment manufacturer named after the Lonsdale belt, a boxing trophy donated by the English Lord Lonsdale.

•

L'Oréal – In 1907, Eugène Schueller, a young French chemist, developed an innovative hair-color formula. He called his improved hair dye Auréole.

•

LOT – LOT Polish Airlines. "Lot" in Polish means "flight".

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Lotus Software – Mitch Kapor named his company after the Lotus Position or 'Padmasana'. Kapor used to be a teacher of Transcendental Meditation technique as taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

•

Lucent Technologies – a spin-off from AT&T, it was named Lucent (meaning "luminous" or "glowing with light") because "light as a metaphor for visionary thinking reflected the company's operating and guiding business philosophy", according to the Landor Associates staff who chose the name.[39] It was taken over by Alcatel to form Alcatel-Lucent in 2006.

•

Lycos – from Lycosidae, the family of wolf spiders.

[edit] M •

Maggi – food company named after its founder, Julius Maggi. It was taken over by Nestlé in 1947 and survives as a brand name.

•

MAN – abbreviation for Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg (AugsburgNuremberg Machine Company). The MAN company is a German engineering works and truck manufacturer.

•

Mandriva – new company formed from the merger of Mandrake Linux and Connectiva Linux

•

Manhattan Associates – named from Manhattan Beach, California, where the company was founded, before it moved to Atlanta, Georgia.

•

Manugistics— Manufacturing + Logistics, a supplier of supply chain optimization software.

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Mars – named after Frank C. Mars and his wife, Ethel, who started making candy in 1911. Their son, Forrest E. Mars, joined with Bruce Murrie, the son of a Hershey executive, to form M&M Ltd (from Mars & Murrie). Forrest took over the family business after his father's death and merged the two companies in 1964. After retiring from Mars, Inc. in 1993, Forrest founded Ethel M. Chocolates, named after his mother.

•

Masco Corporation – from the names of the founder Alex Manoogian, Screw and Company. Masco Screw Products Co. was founded in 1929

•

Mast-Jägermeister AG – Named for founder Wilhelm Mast and its main product, Jägermeister (German for "hunt master") liqueur.

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Mattel – a portmanteau of the founders names Harold "Matt" Matson and Elliot Handler.

•

Mazda Motor Corporation – the company was founded as Toyo Kogyo, started manufacturing Mazda brand cars in 1931, and changed its name to Mazda in 1984. The cars were supposedly named after Ahura Mazda, the chief deity of the Zoroastrians, though many think this explanation was created after the

fact, to cover up what is simply a poor anglicized version of the founders name, Jujiro Matsuda. This theory is supported by the fact that the company is referred to only as "Matsuda" in Japan. •

MBNA – originally a subsidiary of Maryland National Corporation, MBNA once stood for Maryland Bank, NA (NA itself standing for National Association, a federal designation representing the bank's charter).

•

McDonald's – from the name of the brothers Dick McDonald and Mac McDonald, who founded the first McDonald's restaurant in 1940.

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MCI Communications – Microwave Communications, Inc. The company later merged with Worldcom to create MCI Worldcom. The MCI was dropped in 2000 and the acquiring company changed its name to MCI when it emerged from bankruptcy in 2003.

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Mercedes – from the first name of the daughter of Emil Jellinek, who distributed cars of the early Daimler company around 1900.

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Merillat Industries – named after Orville D. Merillat, who founded the company in 1946.

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Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) – Film studio formed from the merger of three other companies: Metro Picture Corporation, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation, and Louis B. Mayer Pictures. Goldwyn Picture Corporation in turn was named after the last names of Samuel Goldfish, and Edgar and Archibald Selwyn.

•

MFI – from Mullard Furniture Industries. The original company was named after the founder's wife, whose maiden name was Mullard.

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MG Cars – from Morris Garages after co-founder William Morris. Under Chinese ownership, the company says: "We want Chinese consumers to know this brand as 'Modern Gentleman'."[40]

•

Microlins – from Microcomputers and Lins, a Brazilian city where the company was founded by José Carlos Semenzato

•

Micron Technology – computer memory producer named after the microscopic parts of its products. It is now better known by its consumer brand name: Crucial.

•

Microsoft – coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that was devoted to microcomputer software. Originally christened Micro-Soft, the '-' disappeared on 3/2/1987 with the introduction of a new corporate identity and logo. The "slash between the 'o' and 's' [in the Microsoft logo] emphasizes the "soft" part of the name and conveys motion and speed."[citation needed]

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Midway Games – derived from the name of an airport on the southwestern part of Chicago.

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Mincom Limited – Mincom was founded in Brisbane, Australia in 1979. Currently the largest software company in Australia and the fourth oldest ERP company globally. The company initially created software to specifically assist mining companies and the name Mining 'computing.

•

Minolta – Minolta was founded in Osaka, Japan in 1928 as Nichi-Doku Shashinki Shōten (日独写真機商店; literally: Japan-Germany camera shop). It was not until 1934 that the name Minolta first appeared on a camera, the Minolta Vest.

•

MIPS – originally stood for Microprocessor without Interlocking Pipeline Stages. When interlocks where added to a later implementation, the name was redefined to not be an acronym but just a name. (The name also connotes computer speed, by association with the acronym for millions of instructions per second.)

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Mitel – from Mike and Terry's Lawnmowers, after the founders Michael Cowpland (see also: Corel) and Terry Matthews, and the company's original business plan.

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MITRE – Massachusetts Institute of Technology Research Establishment (however The MITRE Corporation asserts that its name is not an acronym)

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Mitsubishi – the name Mitsubishi (三菱) has two parts: mitsu means three and hishi (changing to bishi in the middle of the word) means diamond (the shape). Hence, the three diamond logo. (Note that "diamond" in this context refers only to the rhombus shape, not to the precious gem.)

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Morningstar, Inc. – The name Morningstar is taken from the last sentence in Walden, a book by Henry David Thoreau; "the sun is but a morning star"

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Motorola – Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when his company (at the time, Galvin Manufacturing Company) started manufacturing radios for cars. Many audio equipment makers of the era used the "ola" ending for their products, most famously the "Victrola" phonograph made by the Victor Talking Machine Company. The name was meant to convey the idea of "sound" and "motion". It became so widely recognized that the company later adopted it as the company name.

•

Mozilla Foundation – from the name of the web browser that preceded Netscape Navigator. When Marc Andreesen, co-founder of Netscape, created a browser to replace the Mosaic browser, it was internally named Mozilla (Mosaic-Killer, Godzilla) by Jamie Zawinski.[41]

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MVC – from Music and Video Club, the name of a UK-based entertainment chain.

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Mustek – Taiwanese electronics manufacturer with name derived from Most Unique Scanner Technology.

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MRF – from Madras Rubber Factory, founded by K M Mammen Mappillai in 1946. He started with a toy-balloon manufacturing unit at Tiruvottiyur, Chennai (then called Madras). In 1952 he began manufacturing tread-rubber and, in 1961, tyres.

[edit] N •

Nabisco – formerly The National Biscuit Company, changed in 1971 to Nabisco.

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NCR Corporation – from National Cash Register.

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NEC – from Nippon Electric Company.

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Nero – Nero Burning ROM named after Nero burning Rome ("Rom" is the German spelling of "Rome").

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Nestlé – named after its founder, Henri Nestlé, who was born in Germany under the name "Nestle", which is German (actually, Swabian diminutive) for "bird's nest". The company logo is a bird's nest with a mother bird and two chicks.

•

Netscape – Originally the product name of the company's web browser ("Mosaic Communications Netscape Web Navigator"). The company adopted the product name after the University of Illinois threatened to sue for trademark infringement over the use of the Mosaic name. Netscape is the combination of network and landscape.[citation needed]

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Nike – named for the Greek goddess of victory.

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Nikon – the original name was Nippon Kogaku, meaning "Japanese Optical".

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Nintendo – Nintendo is the transliteration of the company's Japanese name, nintendou (任天堂). The first two (nin-ten) can be translated to "entrusted to heaven"; dou is a common ending meaning "hall" or "store".

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Nissan – the company was earlier known by the name Nippon Sangyo which means "Japan Industries".

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Nokia – started as a wood-pulp mill, the company expanded into producing rubber products in the Finnish city of Nokia. The company later adopted the city's name.

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Nortel Networks – named from Nortel (Northern Telecom) and Bay Networks. The company was originally spun off from the Bell Telephone Company of Canada Ltd in 1895 as Northern Electric and Manufacturing, and traded as Northern Electric from 1914 to 1976.

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Novartis – after the Latin expression "novae artes" which means something like "new skills".

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Novell – Novell, Inc. was earlier Novell Data Systems co-founded by George Canova. The name was suggested by George's wife who mistakenly thought that "Novell" meant new in French. (Nouvelle is the feminine form of the French adjective 'Nouveau'. Nouvelle as a noun in French is 'news'.)

[edit] O •

OCZ – play on the word Overclockers.[42]

•

Oracle – Larry Ellison, Ed Oates and Bob Miner were working on a consulting project for the CIA. The code name for the project was Oracle (the CIA saw this as the system to give answers to all questions or some such). The project was designed to use the newly written SQL database language from IBM. The project was eventually terminated but they decided to finish what they started and bring it to the world. Later they changed the name of the company, Relational Software Inc., to the name of the product.

•

Ornge – new name (2006) for Ontario Air Ambulance, chosen to reflect the orange color of its aircraft. It was intended to provide a unique branding but the ornge.com misspelling was already used by an advertising portal.

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Osram – from osmium and wolfram.

[edit] P •

Paccar – from Pacific Car and Rail.

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PCCW – originally Pacific Century Development, the company's English name was changed from Pacific Century CyberWorks Limited to PCCW Limited on August 9, 2002. It owns Hong Kong Telecom.

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Pamida – U.S. retailer founded by Jim Witherspoon and Lee Wegener, it took its name from the first two letters of the names of Witherspoon's three sons: Patrick, Michael and David.

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Pemex – state-owned Mexican oil/gasoline company named from Petróleos Mexicanos.

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Pennzoil – formed by a merger of South Penn Oil (Penn), a former Standard Oil subsidiary, and Zapata Oil (zoil).

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Pepsi – named from the digestive enzyme pepsin.

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Petrobras – Brazilian oil company named from Petróleo and Brasil.

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Philco – from the Philadelphia Storage Battery Company. The pioneering U.S. radio and television manufacturer was taken over by Ford and later by Philips.

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Philips – Royal Philips Electronics was founded in 1891 by brothers Gerard (the engineer) and Anton (the entrepreneur) Philips.

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Pixar – from pixel and the co-founder's name, Alvy Ray Smith. According to the biography "The Second Coming of Steve Jobs" by Alan Deutschman, the 'el' in pixel was changed to 'ar' because 'ar' is frequently used in Spanish verbs, implying the name means "To Pix".

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PMC-Sierra – PMC from Pacific Microelectronics Centre, a research arm of BC Tel, and Sierra from the company that acquired it, Sierra Semiconductor, presumably so named because of the allure of the Sierra Nevada mountains to members of a California-based company.

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Porsche – car company named after Ferry Porsche, son of the founder Ferdinand Porsche, an Austrian automotive engineer. The family name may have originated in the Czech name "Boreš" (boresh).

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Prada – an Italian high fashion house named after the founder Mario Prada, who founded Prada in Milan 1914.

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ProfSat – Brazilian satellite-based education company, meaning Professional Sateliite.

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PRS Guitars – named after its founder, Paul Reed Smith.

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Psion – UK computer company named by its founder, South Africa-born Dr David Potter, from Potter Scientific Instruments Or Nothing.

[edit] Q •

Q8 – the acronym for these gas stations sounds like Kuwait, that is, the letter Q followed by the number 8. It is the abbreviation for Kuwait Petroleum International Limited.

•

Qantas – from its original name, Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services.

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Qimonda – Qimonda carries different meanings and allows associations in different languages. "Qi" stands for flowing or breathing energy, while the combination of the English word "key" and the Latin "mundus" is intuitively understood in the Western World as "key to the world".

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Quad – an acronym for Quality Unit Amplified Domestic. Quad Electroacoustics was founded in 1936 by Peter Walker, and was formerly called the Acoustical Manufacturing Company.

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Quark – named after an atomic particle. The word quark originates from Finnegans Wake by James Joyce.

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Qualcomm – Quality Communication

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QVC – Quality, Value and Convenience

[edit] R •

Rabobank – Raiffeisen-Boerenleenbank, a combination of the two cooperatives that merged to form the company.

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RAND – Research ANd Development.

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Raytheon – "Light of the gods". Maker of missiles such as Patriot, Maverick, Sidewinder and Tomahawk, among other military technology.

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RCA – Radio Corporation of America.

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Red Hat – while at college, company founder Marc Ewing was given the Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes) by his grandfather. People would turn to him to solve their problems and he was referred to as that guy in the red hat. By the time he wrote the manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux he had lost the cap, so the manual included an appeal to readers to return his Red Hat if found.

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Reebok – alternate spelling of rhebok (Pelea capreolus), an African antelope.

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REO Motor Car Company – car manufacturer founded in 1904 by Ransom E. Olds, and named from its founder's initials. Later, the rock band REO Speedwagon took its name from one of its trucks, the REO Speed Wagon.

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Repsol – name derived from Refinería de Petróleo de eScombreras Oil (Escombreras is an oil refinery in Cartagena, Spain) and chosen for its euphony when the, then, state-owned oil company was incorporated in 1986. Previously Repsol was a lubricating-oil trademark.

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Research In Motion – from the phrase "poetry in motion", which company founder Mike Lazaridis had seen used to describe a football player.

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Rickenbacker – named after co-founder Adolph Rickenbacher, with the spelling anglicised. The company started as the Electro String Instrument Corporation in 1931.

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Robeez – baby-shoe company named after the founder's son Robbie (Robert). [43] Robeez was taken over by Stride Rite in 2006.

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Rolls-Royce – name used by Rolls-Royce plc and Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, among others. In 1884 Frederick Henry Royce started an electrical and mechanical business, making his first car, a Royce, in 1904. He was introduced to Charles Stewart Rolls on 4 May that year. The pair entered into a partnership in which Royce would manufacture cars to be sold exclusively by Rolls, and the cars would be called Rolls-Royce.

•

RSA Security – formed from the first letters of the family names of its founders Ronald Rivest, Adi Shamir and Len Adleman.

[edit] S •

SAAB – founded in 1937 in Sweden as Svenska Aeroplan aktiebolaget (Swedish Aeroplane Company); the last word is typically abbreviated as AB, hence SAAB.

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Sabre – Semi-Automatic Business Research Environment.

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Samsonite – named from the Biblical character Samson, renowned for his strength.

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Samsung – meaning three stars in Korean.

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Sanyo – meaning three oceans in Japanese.

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SAP – SystemAnalyse und Programmentwicklung (German for "System analysis and program development"), a company formed by five ex-IBM employees who used to work in the 'Systems/Applications/Projects' group of IBM. Later, SAP was redefined to stand for Systeme, Anwendungen und Produkte in der Datenverarbeitung (Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing).

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SAS – Scandinavian Airlines System, the flag airline carrier of Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

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SAS Institute – originally an abbreviation for Statistical Analysis System.

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Sasol – Suid-Afrikaanse Steenkool en Olie (Afrikaans for South African Coal and Oil).

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SCB – from Standard Chartered Bank. The name Standard Chartered comes from the two original banks from which it was founded – The Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China, and The Standard Bank of British South Africa.

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SCO – from Santa Cruz Operation. The company's office was in Santa Cruz, California. It eventually formed Tarantella, Inc. and sold off its operating system division to Caldera Systems (a spin off from Novell), which is based in Utah. Caldera changed its name to The SCO Group (at which point SCO no longer stood for anything).

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Saudi Aramco – the Aramco name was derived in 1944 when California Arabian Standard Oil Company (Casoc) changed its name to Arabian American Oil Company. The Saudi government purchased the company in 1980, and changed its name to Saudi Arabian Oil Company or Saudi Aramco in 1988.[44]

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SEAT – an acronym from Sociedad Española de Automóviles de Turismo (Spanish Corporation of Touring Cars).

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Sealed Air – from the "sealed air" found in its most notable product, Bubble Wrap.

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Sega – Service Games of Japan was founded by Marty Bromley (an American) to import pinball games to Japan for use on American military bases.

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Seiko – Seiko, now referred to in katakana as セイコー("seiko"), was originally named in kanji as 精工(also "seiko"). The two characters were taken from the phrase 「精巧で精密な時計の生産に成功する工場」, the company's vision which roughly translates to "a factory（工場:kojyo）that successfully（成功: seiko）produces（生産:seisan）exquisit（精巧:seiko）and precise（精密: seimitsu）watches". – According to Seiko's official company history, titled A Journey In Time: The Remarkable Story of Seiko (2003), Seiko is a Japanese word for "exquisite" or "minute" (both spelled 精巧), as well as a word for "success" (spelled 成功).

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Sennheiser – named after one of its founders, Fritz Sennheiser.

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setcom – software engineering and testing for communications, an international group of companies active in the field of wireless test solutions.

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SGI – Silicon Graphics Inc.

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Sharp – Japanese consumer electronics company named from its first product, an ever-sharp pencil.

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Shell – Royal Dutch/Shell was established in 1907, when the Royal Dutch Petrol Society Plc. and the Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd. merged their operations. The Shell Transport and Trading Company Ltd had been established at the end of the 19th century by commercial firm Samuel & Co (founded in 1830). Samuel & Co were already importing Japanese shells when they set up an oil company, so the oil company was named after the shells.

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Siemens – founded in 1847 by Werner von Siemens and Johann Georg Halske. The company was originally called Telegraphen-Bau-Anstalt von Siemens & Halske.

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Six Apart – company co-founders Ben and Mena Trott were born six days apart (in September 1977).

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SKF – from Svenska Kullagerfabriken AB, a Swedish manufacturer founded in 1907. See also Volvo.

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Škoda Auto – the car company was founded in 1895 and originally named Laurin & Klement after its founders, Vaclav Laurin and Vaclav Klement. It was taken over by Škoda Works, an industrial conglomerate, in 1924, and adopted

the Škoda name from Emil Škoda. Škoda Auto was split off after World War II and is now part of Volkswagen. •

Skype – the original concept for the name was Sky-Peer-to-Peer, which morphed into Skyper, then Skype.[45]

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Smart – Swatch + Mercedes + Art

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Smilebit – former Sega development studio named from what they hope to make you do (smile), and the smallest unit of computer information (bit). The company developed Jet Set Radio.

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Smeg – acronym based on the Italian towns where the original enamelling factory was located in Guastalla, Italy.

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SNK – Shin Nihon Kikaku, Japanese for Plans for a New Japan.

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Sony – from the Latin word 'sonus' meaning sound, and 'sonny' a slang word used by Americans to refer to a bright youngster, "since we were sonny boys working in sound and vision", said Akio Morita. The company was founded as Tokyo Tsoshiu Kogyo KK (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation) in 1946, and changed its name to Sony in 1958. Sony was chosen as it could be pronounced easily in many languages.

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Sorcim – "Micros" backwards. Sorcim was the original publisher of the SuperCalc spreadsheet in 1980. It was taken over by Computer Associates.

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SPAR – originally DE SPAR, from Door Eendrachtig Samenwerken Profiteren Allen Regelmatig (Dutch, meaning "All will benefit from united co-operation"). "De spar" in Dutch translates as "the fir tree", hence the fir tree logo. As the company expanded across Europe, the name was shortened by dropping the article, "DE".

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Sperry – company founded by Elmer Ambrose Sperry (1860–1930), originally as Sperry Gyroscope Company. Sperry took over Univac, and eventually was itself taken over by Burroughs. The merged companies became Unisys, from United Information Systems.

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Sprint – from its parent company, Southern Pacific Railroad INTernal Communications. At the time, pipelines and railroad tracks were the cheapest place to lay communications lines, as the right-of-way was already leased or owned.

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SRI International – from Stanford Research Institute, established by the trustees of Stanford University, California

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Stanley Works – name created to reflect the merger of Stanley's Bolt Manufactory of New Britain, Connecticut (founded by Frederick Trent Stanley) and the Stanley Rule and Level Company (founded by his cousin Henry Stanley).

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Starbucks – named after Starbuck, a character in Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick

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Stellent – coined from a combination of the words stellar and excellent.

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STX – pronounced as the word "sticks" because, when first founded, STX manufactured only lacrosse sticks

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Subaru – from the Japanese name for the constellation known to Westerners as Pleiades or the Seven Sisters. Subaru was formed from a merger of seven other companies, and the constellation is featured on the company's logo.

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Sun Microsystems – its founders designed their first workstation in their dorm at Stanford University, and chose the name Stanford University Network for their product, hoping to sell it to the college. They didn't.

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SuSE – from Software und System-Entwicklung (software and system development).

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Suzuki – from the name of its founder, Michio Suzuki.

[edit] T •

Taco Bell – named after founder Glen Bell.

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Talgo – from "Tren Articulado Ligero Goicoechea-Oriol" (Spanish for "Goicoechea-Oriol Light Articulated Train"), Goicoechea and Oriol being the founders of the company.

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TAM Airlines – Brazilian airline company named from Transportes Aéreos Marília (Marilia's Air Transport). Marília is a city in São Paulo state, Brazil.

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TAP Portugal – from "Transportes Aéreos Portugueses" (Portuguese Air Transport).

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Tata Group – conglomerate named after Jamsetji Tata, considered "the father of Indian industry".

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Taxan – made-up name chosen partly because Takusan is a Japanese word for many or much and was considered propitious, but mainly because the head of the company, in the U.S. at the time, Tak Shimizu was known by everyone as Tak-san.

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TCL – from Today China Lion. Derived from literal translation of "今日中国雄 狮" from Chinese to English.

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TCS – from Tata Consultancy Services, from India's Tata Group, named after founder and legendary industrialist Jamsetji Tata.

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TDK Corporation – from Tokyo Denki Kagaku (Tokyo Electronics and Chemicals).

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Tesco – founder Jack Cohen – who sold groceries in the markets of the London East End from 1919 – acquired a large shipment of tea from T. E. Stockwell. He made new labels by using the first three letters of the supplier's name and the first two letters of his surname.

•

Texaco – from The Texas Company U.S.A.[46]

•

THX – from Tomlinson Holman Crossover, the name of the technology's inventor and the audio technology of a crossover amplifier. It may be a backronym, as the technology is owned by George Lucas's company, and he directed THX 1138.

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TIBCO Software – The Information Bus Company. The company was founded by Vivek Ranadive as Teknekron Software Systems in 1985.

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TNT N.V. – Thomas Nationwide Transport, an Australian company which was acquired by the Dutch postal company in 1996; the postal company renamed itself TNT in 2005.

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Toshiba – named from the merger of consumer goods company Tokyo Denki (Tokyo Electric Co) and electrical firm Shibaura Seisaku-sho (Shibaura Engineering Works).

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Toyota – from the name of the founder, Sakichi Toyoda. Initially called Toyeda, it was changed after a contest for a better-sounding name. The new name was written in katakana with eight strokes, a number that is considered lucky in Japan.

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Triang – operating name for Lines Bros Ltd, which was founded by William, Walter and Arthur Edwin Lines. Three Lines make a triangle

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Tucows – an acronym for The Ultimate Collection Of Winsock Software.

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TVR – derived from the first name of the company founder TreVoR Wilkinson

[47]

[edit] U •

Umbro – Umbro was founded in 1924 by the Humphrey (Umphrey) Brothers, Harold C. and Wallace.

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Unilever – name created to reflect the merger of Margarine Unie and Lever Brothers, agreed in 1929. Lever Brothers was named from its founders, William Hesketh Lever and his brother, James.

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UNIMED – Brazilian cooperative of physicians, meaning União de Medicos (Physicians' Union)

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Unisys – from United Information Systems, the new name for the company that resulted from the merging of two old mainframe computer companies, Burroughs and Sperry [Sperry Univac/Sperry Rand]. It united two incompatible ranges. The new-born Unisys was briefly the world's secondlargest computer company, after IBM.

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Unocal Corporation – the Union Oil Company of California, founded in 1890

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UUNET – one of the industry's oldest and largest Internet Service Providers, named from UNIX-to-UNIX Network.

[edit] V •

Varig – Largest international Brazilian airline, its name is an abbreviation of Viação Aérea Rio-Grandense, because it was founded in the state of Rio Grande do Sul.

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Verizon – a portmanteau of veritas (Latin for truth) and horizon.

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Virgin – founder Richard Branson started a magazine called Student while still at school. In his autobiography, Losing My Virginity, Branson says that when they were starting a business to sell records by mail order, "one of the girls suggested: 'What about Virgin? We're complete virgins at business.'"

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Vodafone – from Voice, Data, Telefone. Vodafone made the UK's first mobile call at a few minutes past midnight on 1 January 1985.

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Volkswagen – from the German for people's car. Ferdinand Porsche wanted to produce a car that was affordable for the masses – the Kraft-durch-FreudeWagen (or "Strength-Through-Joy car", from a Nazi social organization) later became known, in English, as the Beetle.

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Volvo – from the Latin word volvo, which means "I roll". It was originally a name for a ball bearing being developed by SKF.

[edit] W •

Wachovia – from the Latin version of the German wachau, the name given to a region in North Carolina by German settlers because it reminded them of a river near their home in Germany. Many companies founded in or around Charlotte, North Carolina have Wachovia in their name.

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Waitrose – upmarket UK supermarket chain originally named after the founders, Wallace Waite, Arthur Rose and David Taylor. The Taylor was later dropped.

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Wal-Mart – named after founder Sam Walton

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Wang Laboratories – from the name of the founder, An Wang, the inventor of core memory.

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Wendy's – Wendy was the nickname of founder Dave Thomas' daughter Melinda.

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Weta Digital – special effects company co-founded by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson. 'Weta' are a group of about 70 species of insect found in New Zealand, where Weta Digital is based.

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W H Smith – founded by Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna in London, England, in 1792. They named their small newsagent's shop after their son William Henry Smith, who was born the same year.

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Williams-Sonoma – founded by Chuck Williams in Sonoma, California.

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Wipro – from Western India Vegetable Products Limited. The company started as a modest Vanaspati and laundry soap producer and is now also an IT services giant.

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WWE – World Wrestling Entertainment, formerly World Wrestling Federation (WWF). It changed its name after a court case brought by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which is now called the World Wide Fund for Nature.

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Worlds of Wonder – founder Don Kingsborough wanted an eyecatching stock symbol, and Worlds Of Wonder provided WOW. The company went bankrupt in 1988.

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WPP – Global advertising and marketing company. Originally called Wire and Plastic Products.

[edit] X

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Xerox – named from xerography, a word derived from the Greek xeros (dry) and graphos (writing). The company was founded as The Haloid Company in 1906, launched its first XeroX copier in 1949, and changed its name to Haloid Xerox in 1958.[48]

[edit] Y •

Yahoo! – The word Yahoo was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book Gulliver's Travels. It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and barely human. Yahoo! founders David Filo and Jerry Yang jokingly considered themselves yahoos. It's also an interjection sometimes associated with United States Southerners' and Westerners' expression of joy, as alluded to in Yahoo.com commercials that end with someone singing the word "yahoo". It is also sometime jokingly referred to by its backronym, Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle.[49]

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YKK – zipper manufacturer named from Yoshida Kogyo Kabushikikaisha (Yoshida Company Limited) after the founder, Tadao Yoshida. The letters YKK were stamped onto the zippers' pull tabs.

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Yoplait – from the merger of Yola and Coplait in 1965.[50]

[edit] Z •

Zend Technologies – a contraction derived from the names of Zeev Suraski and Andi Gutmans, the two founders.

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Zuse – pioneering German computer company named after its founder, Konrad Zuse (1910–1995). He built his first computer in his parents' living room at the end of the 1930s. Zuse was taken over by Siemens AG. The name is now supposedly echoed by SuSE (Software und System-Entwicklung: "Software and system development")..

[edit] See also •

List of companies named after people

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List of oldest companies

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Lists of etymologies

[edit] References 1. ^ UCLA Film & Television Archive – Collections – Twentieth Century-Fox 2. ^ Google-Launches DNA Test!, January 23, 2008, date accessed April 27, 2008 3. ^ 37signals >> 33 > What's in a Name? 4. ^ 3Com | Investor Information | Investor FAQs 5. ^ History 6. ^ 7-Eleven: About – History 7. ^ Archival Collection 8. ^ http://www.rootbeer.com/textonly/roots.html 9. ^ The Long View: Putting An Accent On the Future

10.^ Company History – Adecco – the world leader in human resource solutions 11.^ History 12.^ http://www.adobe.com/aboutadobe/pressroom/pdfs/fastfacts.pdf 13.^ Royal Ahold – AHO Annual and Transition Report (foreign private issuer) (20-F) Item 1. Description of Business 14.^ Synthmuseum.com – Akai 15.^ Hawaiian Dictionaries 16.^ August 11, 1999 – "Akamaize" Adopted into Technology Lexicon 17.^ History 18.^ Alcatel History 19.^ Alcoa: About Alcoa: Trademark History 20.^ AMC Theatres 21.^ DeMaria and Wilson (2003) ""High Score!: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games" p.109 ISBN 0-072-23172-6 22.^ Apache HTTP Server Project 23.^ Steve Ettlinger,. Twinkie, Deconstructed: My Journey to Discover How the Ingredients Found in Processed Foods Are Grown, Mined (Yes, Mined), and Manipulated Into What America Eats. Hudson Street Press. ISBN 1-59463-0186. 24.^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/16/computing-asus 25.^ BenQ Corporation | Introduction: International Directory of Company Histories 26.^ CIGNA Company History 27.^ Cowpland/Corel (Profile) 28.^ "Cutco Cutlery: History". Cutco. 2007. http://www.cutco.com/company/history.jsp. Retrieved on 2007-06-13. 29.^ Mount, Ian (2005-05-29). "The Mystery of Duane Reade". New York. http://nymag.com/nymetro/shopping/features/11908/. Retrieved on 2009-0205. "Founded in 1960 by the brothers Abraham, Eli, and Jack Cohen, Duane Reade started as a three-store health-and-beauty chain that took the name of the two streets that bounded its lower-Broadway warehouse." 30.^ Timeline | eds.com 31.^ FedEx Historical Timeline 32.^ Rosenwald, Michael S. (2006-04-03). "Five Guys, Taking a Bigger Bite". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2006/04/02/AR2006040200723.html. Retrieved on 200807-10. 33.^ "Number 1 with a Burger" (PDF). Restaurant Business. August 2006. http://www.fiveguys.com/Images/Restaurant%20Biz%20Magazine%20August %202006.pdf. Retrieved on 2008-09-13. 34.^ Häagen-Dazs | Company | History

35.^ Ittiam l About Us l Identity 36.^ http://kpmghu.lcc.ch/dbfetch/52616e646f6d4956c247e50a674f62a32f0d0154 79d0165a302d8f3a286f0314/who_were_kpmg.pdf 37.^ "Lego.com About Us – Lego Company – The Lego Group". LEGO Group. 2007. http://www.lego.com/eng/info/default.asp?page=group. Retrieved on 2007-07-13. 38.^ GameSpy.com – Article: Developer Origins 39.^ Landor: Thinking: Articles: Lucent 40.^ Telegraph.co.uk: As Longbridge stands empty, the MG Rover jigsaw takes shape 6,000 miles away. Issued 2006/06/18; retrieved 2006/07/01. 41.^ Jamie Zawinski (August 5, 1994). "the netscape dorm.". jwzrants. http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nscpdorm.html. Retrieved on 2007-04-20. 42.^ What You Didn't Know About Ryan Petersen – Tom's Hardware 43.^ "Robeez Footwear: Better By Design" (PDF). http://www.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/mfbsgprea.nsf/vwapj/RobeezFootwear_Eng.pdf/$FILE/RobeezFootwear_Eng.pdf. 44.^ http://www.saudiaramco.com 45.^ Skype Forums > The name ''Skype'' 46.^ Texaco Brand Portal 47.^ http://www.tucowsinc.com/aboutus/history.php 48.^ The History of Xerox 49.^ The History of Yahoo! – How It All Started... 50.^ A Bit of History Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_company_name_etymologies"