Amusing post from Roberto Boccadoro in which he attempts to explain IBM’s Workplace branding. He dismisses the existence of multiple products with the same name (“Does this create confusion? I do not think so”) and heaps fun on Microsoft from the explosion of products that live under the Office brand.
Why is this amusing? Because customers don’t understand what the difference is between Workplace-the-product and Workplace-the-brand. I see this time and again when I speak with people. Just as it was a bad idea for Microsoft to have two different products both named SharePoint, IBM’s differentiation between Workplace and its subordinate products isn’t, well, working. And don’t get me started on the many subordinate products– when you install Workplace Collaboration Services (hmm, they didn’t steal that name from Oracle, did they?) you also get WebSphere and a passel of other, un-Workplace-branded products. By contrast, Notes/Sametime has a much more consistent branding message… at least, it did until I got hoovered up into Workplace.
Paul's Down-Home Page 