As the third year of the third millennium, the year 2002 was a year to remember.
In the news, George Bush was the US president, and since the atrocities of the previous year, dark clouds were looming over the Middle East. In sporting news, Japan and South Korea hosted the 2002 World cup. This was ultimately won by Brazil who outplayed Germany in the final to win a record-breaking fifth world cup. And in Europe, the new Euro currency was finally introduced into the streets, bringing a mixed reaction of joy to confusion from companies and people alike.
So, as the headline states, why was 2002 the year of the Octopus?
Despite it being the Chinese year of the horse, for Octopus, it was the year they officially registered the company name.
For this blog, we had the delight of interviewing Honza Pulpan, who was one of the original co-founders of Octopus Newsroom. He explained that despite being in business since 1999, the Octopus name came later. And how the name of the company was derived, may not be as people imagined.
Back then, Pulpan was in discussion with one of his fellow co-founders about the new company name, with topical suggestions such as Newsroom200 — it was still a relatively new millennia after all, when the other co-founder’s partner returned from a visit to an Aquarium. In a very matter-of-fact way, she said “Just call it Octopus”, and it stuck!
The name Octopus really made sense to everyone as it connected all system together from a centralized point, allowing broadcasters to simultaneously collect and manage information and connect with other technologies, all from one location.
Pulpan continues, that his surname is actually close to Octopus in Spanish, and people always asked him when he was in Spain if the company was named after him. He obviously denied it, yet he took as a sign that they had named it correctly!
Also, 2002 was when Octopus began to have some serious growth internationally, winning some big accounts in India and Pakistan. Pulpan continues that given the size of the TV industry and the innovative technology they were developing, that word & mouth appeared to be their best friend for marketing and India became quite a significant market for them. Octopus was beginning to get their tentacles established with a firm grip into a truly global business.
Stay tuned to find out what happened in 2003 in our next series of ‘Blast-from-the-past’ blog posts.