[II2II]

Agreed on the ability to search for programs, add to that the difficulty in creating a meaningful name that won't confuse at least some users and doesn't step on trademarks or other project names. Even popular software titles have naming issues, with brand recognition being the main distinguishing factor that helps people figure out what the software does:

- Excel, says absolutely nothing about what the product does.

- PowerPoint is only tangentially related to what the product does.

- Internet Explorer vs. Windows Explorer confuses many users.

To avoid singling out just Microsoft, look at Apple:

- Numbers basically depends upon people associating spreadsheets with any form of quantitative analysis.

- Keynote is only tangentially related to what the product does.

- Safari says absolutely nothing about what the program does.

Contrast that to the brilliantly named GIMP: GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is clearly a program for enhancing photographs of gnu's! Okay, maybe it's not so brilliant. Yet it does demonstrate that naming is hard even when the name states what the program is.