Sometimes I wonder if Macro Scheduler has outgrown its name. “Macro” seems too small a word, and “Scheduler” is just one small feature. It’s so much more than these two words suggest now.

When version one was released there were less than 20 commands, purely for simulating user input and manipulating windows. No script editor, just a drop down list to select the few commands you needed. And a scheduler. Macro Scheduler was the perfect name. People used it to write macros and schedule them.

Fast forward ten years and Macro Scheduler’s script language, which we call MacroScript, is now vast, with all kinds of functions, looping constructs, conditional statements, subroutines, internet functions, etc. It has a dialog designer for creating user interfaces, embedded VBScript, see-screen image recognition, a debugger, DLL functions you can use to run functions in custom DLLs and Windows API functions, and a full featured editor. There really is nothing it cannot automate. I know people who have created routines over 5000 lines long. The emphasis now must surely be on the word “automation”. But at the same time it has got easier to use.

One feels the word Macro just doesn’t do these capabilities justice. I also wonder if first time visitors might initially make the mistake of comparing Macro Scheduler to other products which are more basic.

But what’s the solution? Change the name? I’m loathe to do that for a number of reasons. There’s ten years of history, loyalty, word of mouth and Google-juice in the name “Macro Scheduler”. No way should we drop the name altogether. Or maybe we should leave Macro Scheduler where it is but start a new branch of the product with a new name? I don’t know. I do know that the word macro is searched for on Google many many times more than the word automate. So perhaps we should leave things be? I also know that Macro Scheduler is a very capable product and we want people to realise that. I don’t want the name putting anyone off.

The other day I was talking to someone at one of the largest utility companies in the USA. She told me that her IT department uses HP’s WinRunner product for automation but they were unable to get it to automate one particular piece of software. WinRunner costs thousands of dollars. She found Macro Scheduler and was very quickly able to use it to automate this tricky application. Other customers report similar stories. Well I guess the name didn’t matter in this case. She found our product and it proved itself.

So does the name matter?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 at 4:10 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.