Seattle startup Treemo Labs is dumping the name of its flagship product Flowboard, a move that comes 17 months after engaging in a legal battle over the name with San Francisco-based mobile news reading app Flipboard.
As part of that dispute, Flipboard asked Treemo to change the name of its presentation and storytelling app, something that the startup company is formally announcing today.
“While the company was involved in a name litigation dispute, we chose to rebrand while keeping the same F logo,” Treemo CEO Brent Brookler told GeekWire.
The new name?
Brookler said the name change has been in the works for some time, adding that it marks the “natural evolution” of the product beyond tablets. All Flowboard presentations will be immediately accessible in the new FlowVella service, which Brookler said is designed to allow anyone to create amazing visual presentations.
“Other presentation software tools like PowerPoint remain as static, and as difficult to create and share, as they did 20 years ago,” said Brookler. “FlowVella is the new approach – it’s been designed from the ground up to be elegant and simple yet innovative and powerful.”
Interestingly, the new name comes a day after we reported that another presentation software product, Slide Bureau, is shutting down on Dec. 24. Another player in the market is Seattle-based Haiku Deck, which recently released a desktop version of its presentation software tool.
That’s something that FlowVella also is doing, announcing a $4.99 Mac version today. It also is announcing a new iPad App Builder, which allows any of the presentations created through FlowVella to be turned into an app. Seattle’s Experience Music Project is among the first customers, with visitors to the museum able to see the technology in action as part of the “We are 12” and “Indie Game Revolution” exhibits.
Treemo raised $750,000 in startup financing earlier this year, including funds from angel investors such as Geoff Entress and Vijay Vashee.
