Every time I read the name, my reading flow stops and I stare at the name. HBWhat? Does that stand for something? Are they initials? Who is Gary? Are they from Indiana?
It triggers this bizarre, deep-down irritation like nothing else I've ever seen.
How much you want to bet that the H. B. and G. of this company had ties/tenure in DoD or other governmental departments and were thus situated to reply to RFPs from their previous colleagues.
This is very common in the MIC.
It's right on par with naming your company "ImSo$#@!Awesome Inc." or something.
To make matters worse, they've got women wearing shirts that say "GoDaddy" on their front page. Gotta wonder what their target audience is, with that featuring so prominently.
Lately, though, I'm bothered in a different way. It seems like they want to create an image of celebrating empowered women. Their execution, however, revolves around turning them immediately into sex objects. My conclusion is that Bob Parsons has a fetish about putting women under his control, he made it his corporate image, and it creeps me out.
Their marketing is truly cringe-worthy though. I only keep the registration of that single domain there, and I will probably move it elsewhere when it expires in a couple years.
Inc magazine did a segment on Bob Parsons: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/the-way-i-work-bob-pars...
With HBGary, though, only the 'H' can be clearly attributed to a founder declared on their 'about' page, Greg Hogland. But they probably had other people in mind for the rest at the founding.
My problem with it is that by having the term "solutions" in your name, you have a clearly defined problem for which your company is the only answer. Invariably, I find that any company with the word "solutions" in their name cannot succinctly define what it is they do.
They imply they are the solution to something, but I just see it as a company founded by the marketing department.