LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. -- Lotus Development will maintain its own identity and brands despite rumors to the contrary, according to a senior official from Lotus' parent company IBM.

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IBM's John M. Thompson, executive vice president in charge of the IBM software group, pointedly opened a press briefing Monday afternoon at the Lotusphere trade show here with comments about the importance of Lotus to IBM as a whole. He was responding to rumors that Lotus is to be subsumed into the IBM brand, talk that has circulated since the announcement that a veteran executive from IBM will take over the helm at the company when Lotus President and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Papows' resignation takes effect Feb. 1.

In response to a question, Papows also stressed that Lotus will continue to make client software. Rumors have circulated for some time now that Lotus is moving away from the client side of its business and will instead emphasize its server software as IBM, which bought Lotus five years ago, more fully takes charge of its subsidiary. Thompson's recent announcement that Al Zollar, the general manager of IBM's network computing software division, will succeed Papows as Lotus head have fanned the rumor flames.

Further fueling the rumor fire is the news that IBM and Lotus have jointly agreed to step up the pace of the integration of IBM WebSphere and Lotus Domino. Thompson said that users pushed the companies to integrate the two products more quickly than initially planned because customers want high-speed electronic-commerce capabilities and workflow functions that can be provided through a more integrated package.

Beyond that, reporters noticed that the Lotus name was not as prominently displayed at the opening keynote address here Monday as at previous Lotusphere shows, and that Papows and other executives did not name-check the company as often as in the past. Papows responded to a comment along those lines from a veteran IT reporter by noting that the stage setting was yellow -- Lotus' theme color. The reporter replied, apparently referring to IBM's "Big Blue" moniker, that the yellow was highlighted "with a lot of blue lighting."

Lotus recently has spent a lot of money to promote brand awareness, Papows countered, and insisted there has been no conscious decision to move away from the Lotus brand. Thompson backed that comment.

Not letting the subject drop, another veteran IT reporter asked the executives why there was no mention of Lotus' SmartSuite application family during Papows' keynote and whether that omission was an indication that the company is getting out of the client software business in the office suite market. Although Lotus does not lead in that area, and is behind Microsoft's Office suite, Papows said that with 28 million active SmartSuite users, Lotus would be in trouble "from a customer satisfaction standpoint" if it halted that product.

With Lotus' Notes groupware gaining 8.5 million client seats globally in the fourth quarter of last year, "we have never been more committed to the client," Papows said.

However, Lotus is less committed to its flagging cc:Mail client e-mail software, he said. The company sold 160,000 new copies of the software in the fourth quarter of last year and "no one is more amazed than me or more appreciative," Papows said, attributing those sales largely to customers wanting to obtain a newer version of the product that was year-2000 compliant.

At its height, cc:Mail had some 21 million users, but that number has since dropped to about 11 million, Papows said. Lotus will support the software through this year, but plans to drop it sometime next year, he added.

Lotus Development, in Cambridge, Mass., is at www.lotus.com.