Max Schireson

What's in a Name?

Today 10gen is changing its name to MongoDB, Inc. I wanted to share my thoughts on the change with the MongoDB community. The short version: the company is completely dedicated to building and supporting MongoDB, so it made sense to have a name which clearly communicates that focus. The long version, for those who want more context, starts with some history. When Dwight and Eliot founded 10gen they were building an open source cloud computing stack . Of course with multiple products under development the company had a name and an identity separate from any of the products. Fairly early on, Dwight and Eliot decided to focus the company 100% on MongoDB. This left a company named 10gen that was completely focused on building and supporting MongoDB. There are pros and cons of 10gen and MongoDB as names. 10gen sounds more serious and alphabetizes better. MongoDB is catchier and easier to spell. In the end, the decision to change was not a decision about which name was better, but a decision that one name/identity/brand was better than two names/identities/brands. Why one name versus two? Simply put, with two names the name of the company failed to communicate what the company’s mission was. With unified naming, the company’s name clearly communicates who we are and what we do. Furthermore, we wanted to continue building awareness of MongoDB; building awareness of both MongoDB and of 10gen would be more complex and more expensive than focusing on MongoDB. We felt it was better to invest that incremental spend in making MongoDB better (ie, hire more engineers) than making 10gen more recognizable (lots of marketing spend required). Over the coming decade, we have tons of work to do on MongoDB. We will continue to invest in the product, the community, our partners and making our users and customers successful. We believe passionately that the world needs a database which is better suited to modern application development. We are excited that so many of you are choosing MongoDB and committed to making that choice a success. Our new name clearly reflects our total commitment to MongoDB. We look forward to working with the community to help MongoDB realize its potential. -Max and the MongoDB Team