I love DNN.

I install it as a foundation for any website I put up.  Even if my client hasn't requested a CMS I figure I'm doing them (and me) a favor by setting it up on the DNN platform.  In the future we may both be happy I did.

One problem I have is that explaining to a client that I'm setting them up on something called DotNetNuke is always a little painful.  It's hard to sound professional and to inspire trust when you are proposing to install something named DotNetNuke.  Whenever I say it I think of the old first person shooter - Duke Nukem.  DotNetNuke sounds like an action computer game to me and, as far as I can tell, other people too.  I understand that back in the olden days there was PHP Nuke and the term "Nuke" became synonymous with a CMS platform but that little facet of history is lost on most people.

Now DNN is wisely rebuilding it's internals to be better positioned for the scalability required by corporate America.  They are positioning themselves to move ahead and become a real player in the CMS world and I think that's great.  I believe this is an amazing product and as much as I've used it I can't recall any time when I've tried to do something and was unable to because of limitations with this product.  I believe, however, that the comic book name of DNN will inhibit its ability to penetrate the corporate market.  I'm an IT Director for a prominent organization in San Francisco and I can tell you that if I knew nothing about DNN and someone came into my office proposing to build me a website on a platform called DotNetNuke I'd call security.

I feel strongly that it's time to re-brand DNN.  It started life as IBuySpy and morphed to DotNetNuke and now it's time to move on.  As dumb as names like Joomla and Drupal are, they at least are better than DotNetNuke.  I'm worried that this name will diminish this fine product's credibility in the corporate market and would like to suggest a change.

How does anyone else feel?

I had similar experiences with my ex boss - He simply would not look at it because of the name.... which was a joke. He even got angry about it when I mentioned it. I mean REALLY angry. I don't want any DotNetNuke in my "organisation" etc.

I ended up just calling it DNN rather than DotNetNuke.... or just make up your own name... we even ended up having a couple of DNN websites under his nose after our "re-branding".

I now notice my ex-boss uses a thing called "Twitter" - the first four letters are pretty appropriate for him I suggest.

I have to agree with Jerry, rebranding DotNetNuke now would take a huge effort, the name is now included in the product, the corp. behind it, numerous web sites, books and public minds. I think, it is easier to explain where it derived from or invent a funny tale for people to remember the name easily.