Ray Ozzie* and Mitch Kapor* are waiting across USPTO, just to re-take trademark rights of Lotus brand in case IBM drops it :)

That was the sentence from a blog post, written in April 1st, as a (not funny) joke. Somehow I forgot to post it... Then, today, I saw the posting by Julian Buss which reminded me this joke.

The rumor is around for a while. Earlier this year, I accidentally heard about Lotus Connections - IBM Connections transition. Adding this to the rumor that mentions about a possible re-branding for Lotus Notes/Domino products, I even watched Ed Brill's session in the LUGTR 2011 conference again to see if there are any clues :) Ed used 'Lotus Domino' name only once in his session and all slides were 're-branded' as 'Notes Next', 'Domino Next', etc.

Ok ok, I am not thinking straight :)

However, now, as you see in comments to the posting above, It is being discussed publicly...

I have to say that, I am much surprised that this re-branding issue seems to be welcomed in the community. There are arguments telling the 'corrosion' of Lotus brand against Microsoft. Whereas, some are pointing that 're-branding' does not replace the need of magical improvements needed in the product. It's not just community. Many friends around also supports re-branding, surprising again.



In fact, I don't know what to say. The emotional (and evangelistic) side of me passed the 'denial' phase. I am now trying to decide whether I should be in 'anger' or not, surely before 'acceptance' :)

I think at some point I will have to change this blog's name to 'somewhatnotus.com' :)))

I will continue to blog about this issue.

* Ray Ozzie is one of the creators of Lotus Notes. Mitch Kapor is the founder of Lotus Development Co.