Rebranding – from the sublime…

IBM did something fantastically well this week.

They announced the rebranding of IBM Lotus Notes (and Domino/iNotes/Traveler) to… IBM Notes (and Domino/iNotes/Traveler).  Simple? Yes.  Right? Yes. 

At the same time they shifted the upcoming Notes 8.5.4 Social Edition to be Notes 9.0 Social Edition as there are so many great new features and UI changes included in the release.  Simple? Yes.  Right? Yes.

After nearly 2 years of living in a nether world of partial name changes, talk of toxic brands, discussions of the sound of ‘9’ in various different languages, IBM have made two tough but absolutely correct decisions.  Yes, many of us have loved the ‘Lotus’ brand, the yellow, the ‘Sphere, the history of Iris and more.  It is sad to see it go, but there is no doubt in my mind that this is the right decision.

IBM Notes and Domino 9.0 Social Edition is the right product at the right time.  Alongside IBM Connections, IBM Sametime, IBM Connections Mail and the upcoming IBM Docs, this makes a great stable of collaboration tools.

Even better, IBM made the time and spent the money to put on an excellent webcast to inform the community of the decision this week.  It is available for replay and to share with others in your organisations – make sure you do!  Now it just needs to make sure those outside the immediate community get to hear the message as well.  I hope that as we move into 2013, toward IBM Connect and the actual release of 9.0, that IBM will put out a campaign of advertising and marketing to ensure that the news is obvious to all that whilst they may have consigned ‘Lotus Notes’ to the past, ‘IBM Notes’ is not just alive but in very good health.

‘Lotus Notes is dead, long live IBM Notes!’