<p>In a move that has been a long time in the making, IBM is dropping the Lotus brand and in the future will use the IBM brand on its own to identify products such as Notes and Domino.</p><p>IBM plans to deliver a public beta of IBM Notes/Domino 9.0 Social Edition that will not carry the Lotus brand, Ed Brill, director of social business and collaboration solutions at IBM, wrote in a 13 November blog post. "This beta is also the point where Notes/Domino will join other IBM software solutions in sporting only the IBM brand the second-most-valuable brand in the world," Brill said in his post.'Business as usual'</p><p>IBM's dropping the Lotus brand might be viewed as a historic moment for old-timers, but also as a business-as-usual move by an industry giant. Lotus has been around since 1982, initially as the Massachusetts-based Lotus Development Corp., which released its famed Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet in 1983. IBM acquired Lotus in 1995 for $3.5 billion (2.2bn), primarily to get hold of Lotus Notes, then a wildly popular groupware system developed by Ray Ozzie's Iris Associates that was eating into IBM's profits.</p><p>"In a nutshell, the updated branding of Notes and Domino is a continuation of IBM's overall branding strategy," an IBM spokeswoman told eWEEK. "As social business begins to dominate the collaboration market, Lotus must follow suit. It's not about IBM dropping a brand, but more about strengthening the portfolio and meeting customer needs."</p><p><a href="http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/ibm-drops-lotus-brand-99434">Keep reading...</a></p><p>Read also:</p><p><a href="http://channelnomics.com/2012/11/19/ibm-retires-lotus-focuses-social-business/">IBM Retires Lotus, Focuses on 'Social Business'</a> (Channelnomics)</p><p><a href="http://www.zdnet.com/alas-poor-lotus-we-knew-you-well-7000007606/">Alas poor Lotus, we knew you well</a> (ZDNet)</p><p><a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/19/ibm_drops_lotus_brand_from_notes_and_domino/">IBM drops Lotus brand from next version of Notes</a> (Register)</p><p>Explore: <a href="http://news.google.com/news/more?ncl=dbqNRQ0lROA5OPMMwJKZeNrnZwHEM&ned=us">9 additional articles.</a></p>