Names of Companies

Companies (like people) are sensitive about their own names.

When a company incorporates, it names itself. That name may or may not include a comma. And you may need a comma to separate the corporate name from the rest of the sentence.

For example, a company could call itself Software Inc.
It could just as easily choose Software, Inc. or Software Incorporated or Software, Incorporated. If you want to type the company name correctly, copy it off the company stationery, or search it on the Internet.

Incidentally, the same is true of the ampersand (&). Some companies use it and some emphatically do not. One firm calls itself Canel and Canel, another Jones & Jones. Many three-name firms seem to use the ampersand but omit the comma before it: Riskin, Howard & Beame.

However, if the firm name ends in “Inc.” and you use that name in a sentence, guidebooks tell you to add a comma. For example, I would write
Weber & Pike, Inc., filed a suit on behalf of General Cereals.

The extra comma also appears after other abbreviations in a similar spot:

Jones Harmon Wilder, P.C., [professional corporation] is a new law firm in town.
Lee Penfelder, Ph.D., announces the opening of a new office.