Summary Bullets:

• IBM announced Kyndryl as the name of the legacy IT services business unit it will spin off later this year
• Reaction was swift and mocking as industry watchers collectively wondered what a brand master like IBM was thinking with the Kyndryl name.
When IBM disclosed plans in 2020 to shed its legacy IT services business at some point in 2021, the company emphasized that the move would allow it to concentrate on higher profit margin services. Industry watchers touted this as a way for IBM to become more of a pure-play cloud provider untethered from the challenge of managing a behemoth. Words like “dynamic”, “agile”, and “innovative” were bandied about but only minimal attention was directed toward what would become of the spin-off known as NewCo at the time.
That changed this week with the announcement of the future spin-off’s new moniker: Kyndryl. Critics reacted with skepticism almost instantly to the questionable name. Coming from a company as seasoned in branding as IBM, the rather odd name raised eyebrows and elicited questions. What is a Kyndryl? Kyndryl rhymes with Kindle? Why does Kyndryl sound more like a Kardashian than a company?
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