I’ve been thinking ….
…… dangerous I know – but with all the talk of the brands going away and the software group becoming a big happy mish-mash of products and solutions and the much chat around “if there is no Lotus what is Lotusphere going to be called” chat – to be it still makes perfect sense to call the Annual Conference – LOTUSPHERE
So the bit of IBM that was Lotus the brand is now IBM Collaboration Solutions – which kind of makes sense as we have Lotus Domino and Notes, The WebSphere based products like Connections and Portal/WCM and Quickr that can be either and Sametime that uses both – all very Collaborative .. but calling our Annual Conference any thing other than Lotusphere just seems dumb.
Just look at it for a minute … Lotus …. Sphere
LOTUS (web)SPHERE
LOTUSPHERE
Please IBM .. do what you must with Brands, Product names and marketing (ok may be not marketing but we can live in hope eh;) )
BUT the conference name is perfect – everyone knows Lotusphere, what goes on at Lotusphere mostly stays at Lotusphere (and twitter and facebook and youtube) – if it ain’t broke don’t fix it
+1
Anyway, WebSphereSphere just soooo wouldn’t work 🙂
John Cleese said it on stage there once: Lotusphere is a perfect anagram for “Pluto’s here”, which, he said, referenced perfectly to the location. So, why not call it “Pluto’s here”-
I heard it was going to be renamed “SandySphere”, in honour of the Goddess of Socialness.
😉
But you could also name it “SocialSphere” 😉
Dropping the name on everything but Lotusphere?
I expect that in the future IBM will try to open Lotusphere for more IBM products (because everything is IBM now).
Keeping the name does not make much sense to me although I like it.
Imho, with “Fusion” IBM already has a name that would fit quite well.
Now isn’t the time to be hugging the tree.
Let the Lotus brand go completely and move on would be my advice to IBM.
Let the attendees create the unofficial un-Lotusphere collatoral because that will be fun.
What about MatNewmanSphere? Actually, Stuartsphere is catchier. No offense, Mat.
Oh, I’ve got it – SHAZZASPHERE!
In which case lets ditch it & call it something not aligned to any product ala Impact ??
@2 – How about LotaSphere – it’s a perfect anagram of
‘Platos Here’
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/library/ls-NDHistory/
So far it is still Lotusphere. Will it stay that way is anyone’s guess. Unofficial T-shirts have been done through the years by the CULT guys.
A new name perhaps may come but “we will always have Lotusphere” to abuse the line from Casablanca.
Any aye’s for FaceSphere?
😉