Date   : Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:42:02 +0100
From   : pete@... (Pete Turnbull)
Subject: A new Element 14

On 27/07/2009 17:06, Anders Carlsson wrote:
> Pete Turnbull wrote:
> 
>> Nope, in most of Europe "BBC" belongs (or used to, at least until 1996)
>> to Brown Boveri et Cie, now renamed ABB.  The British Broadcasting
>> Corporation have never owned European rights to the initials.
> 
> I can only speak for myself, but I think the British Broadcasting 
> Corporation internationally has and still is more famous than e.g. Brown 
> Boveri. Prior to the merge between ASEA and Brown Boveri, I had never heard 
> about the Swiss company. I would assume most employees at ASEA had neither.
> 
> However who has the rights to something and who is best known for something 
> are two different things, in particular when it comes to so relatively 
> trivial things as names and acronyms.

Yep, that's true.  I do know that Brown Boveri owned the rights across 
most of Europe for most of the 20th century (and predate the British 
Broadcasting Corporation), and that's why the Beeb specifically couldn't 
be called a "BBC Microcomputer" outside the UK.  Brown Boveri made a lot 
of electrical switchgear (power distribution stuff, not particularly 
domestic 240V), and were pretty well known in certain circles, but 
perhaps not to the general public (I knew of them from long before BBC 
Micro days, but that's because I'd come across high-power electrical 
switchgear!).  For all I know ABB still own the rights, but I do know 
they changed the company name when they merged in 1996.

-- 
Pete                                           Peter Turnbull
                                               Network Manager
                                               University of York