What do you think of Starbuck's new logo?

http://www.starbucks.com/preview
This a re-post of an article I wrote the day it was announced.
Starbucks Coffee has changed it’s logo.
This isn’t the first time they have changed it, rather I should say evolved it. It has always and continued to stay true to the roots of the first logo. When I first heard the news and then saw the logo, it was not what I expected. When I typically think of Starbucks, I think of the word “Starbucks” that is it. The siren in the middle of the logo never really popped out to me. It always looked like background noise. I am drinking out of a Starbucks mug right now and it only has the words Starbucks Coffee on it. In my mind I always saw the words Starbucks in the san-serif block font and a circle. The new logo is completely devoid of the word Starbucks. It maintains the circular shape, but the full emphasis is one of the siren. The siren has now become the face of Starbucks.

My first thought was that this was a bad idea. They should have done a slower transition from the words/siren, to just the siren. When I listened to Starbucks’ CEO Howard Shultz explain the future direction of the company I rethought my position. They are trying to expand beyond just being a coffee company. There has been talk of expanding new food opportunities and possibly serving beer and wine is some cafes. They are trying to break out of the circle of being only a coffee company, so they lost the circle.

I think the logo is enough of a departure from the old mold to allow them to successfully enter these new areas, while maintaining the integrity and tradition of who they are. They have gone the way of Nike and Pepsi. They are positioning themselves to be recognized by the logo alone. I believe Starbucks is big enough and a strong enough brand to do so. Starbucks is modern in it's design and I don’t think they will get as much push back as some other companies have.

Update:
Well, I have seen about 95% of the people say they hate the new logo. Someone told me it looked too American. (I assume they said that because I mentioned they were trying to expand into different countries) Most people just hated the fact that the word Starbucks is not on there. I truly think that the logo will not be use entirely by itself. Sometimes you may see the word Starbucks beneath it sometimes the logo will stand alone. I do wonder if they would have had this negative reaction if the didn't make an announcement and just fazed in the new logo. Starbucks currently has the circle logo and sometimes they just use the word. I think it would have just looked like another graphical representation of Starbucks and people would have been more accepting. I am interested to see the reaction when the actually start using it.