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Samsung should bring its Ativ brand to the US, but will it?

Samsung should bring its Ativ brand to the US, but will it?

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Samsung's Ativ branding is apparently not coming to the US, and that's a bad idea.

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Samsung ATIV Smart PC leak
Samsung ATIV Smart PC leak

Today at IFA, Samsung presented not only a slew of new devices, but a totally new brand that connected them all: Ativ. Difficult pronunciation aside (we're pretty sure it rhymes with "Aleve"), it's a smart move for the company. Along with the introduction of the Galaxy Camera, it's a lot more cross-device integration and communication than we're used to seeing from the Korean behemoth. But while the emperor has expressed interest in clothes, it remains mostly nude: Ativ is not a global brand. The Ativ Smart PC and Smart PC Pro are called the Series 5 Slate and Series 7 Slate in the US, and we can only assume the Ativ Windows RT tablet and Windows Phone 8 handset will have different, likely more verbose and inscrutable names if and when they come stateside.

We're confident the Series 5 and Series 7 Slate will be called Ativ when they arrive on store shelves, if only because doing so is such a simple and obviously good idea. It would be nonsensical for Samsung to forgo a new, unified, global brand in order to still have a device called the Series 5 on the market. Samsung clearly understands the power of these brands, as it demonstrated by strong-arming the Galaxy S III onto nearly every American carrier, but at least for now the company appears to have forgotten its own lesson.