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You are here: Home › Blog

Is renaming Sametime a mistake? Again?


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At IBM Connect 2014 we watched, well tried to catch, the announcement from Jeff Schick that IBM was changing the IBM Sametime name to IBM Connections Chat and IBM Connections Meetings. Is this a repeat mistake from years ago?

First let me look at how fast the announcement was made. I barely had time to pic up my trusty camera to capture the moment. It was on the screen and gone so fast you can see the words changing

IBM Sametime to IBM Connections Chat



Here are my thoughts on why the IBM Sametime name change is a mistake (again)    
  • You just spent huge effort in making the three C programs in IBM Sametime 9 to simplify and pushing it to market. Communicate, Conference and Complete. No one has their head around all of that yet. How do those fit into the plan? Are those scrapped? Nothing has been stated that anyone remembers hearing
  • The general consensus I hear is that people must now run IBM Connections to have simple chat. No you do not. The problem with taking an actual product name and making it a platform is perception. Coke is a product. We know that Diet, Cherry, Vanilla and whatever require Coke to be part of it.  They didn't make Coke water, they made Dasani.  New name. Not Coke Water as thyat would require Coke. Get it? People think Connections Chat requires Connections.
  • IBM tried this back in 6.5.1 timeframe by changing Lotus Sametime to Lotus Instant Messaging and Web Conferencing (LIMWC pronounced limb-wick). This failed miserably and the name went back on the next release.  IBM realized that you have built a brand around a name, it is hard to rip it out and just replace it.

I could go on but I would rather have conversation from all of you around this. Anyone like the name change? Think it makes sense? Think it will go back again?

Read the first article where I announced it called Goodbye IBM Sametime, we loved your name.

Then head over to the IBM Connect sessions database find the slides you were missing or want to see and thank the authors!