IBM offers alternative to MS Office with Lotus Symphony

Posted on September 20, 2007 at 8:59 am

Make sure to read other posts from the Online Office Suites series!

  1. Review of Live Documents – Office 2007 online replacement
  2. First look and review of Microsoft Office Live Workspace Beta
  3. Adobe BuzzWord – New online web-based Word Processor
  4. Zoho – Free online office applications – Word Processor, Spreadsheets, etc
  5. IBM offers alternative to MS Office with Lotus Symphony
  6. Create, edit, and share Microsoft Office format documents online without any software
  7. Create online web presentations using Google Docs presentations

Everyone thought that only Google was out to take on Microsoft’s dominant Office suite of products, but apparently IBM is now in the fight too! Yesterday they officially announced that the release of a new suite of free office productivity tools named Lotus Symphony. The suite consists of a word processor, spreadsheet application, and a presentation software. The new software is based on the Open Document Format (ODF), which is nice since it means you’re not locked into any kind of proprietary file format.

The software is not only free for individuals, schools, and businesses, but IBM will also offer paid technical support for Windows XP, Windows Vista, SUSE Linux, and Read Hat Linux. There will also be a Mac OS X version available soon! So no more waiting 5 years for Microsoft to release a new version of Office for Mac! This product is aimed directly at Microsoft Office as a free alternative for employers or employees who simply need to write documents, make simple spreadsheets or tables, and create decent-looking slideshows.

Why pay $120 minimum, when you can now use Lotus Symphony as a desktop application or use Google Docs web applications to create, edit, and share documents. Currently, the Lotus Symphony software can only open and read .doc, .xls, .ppt, and .pdf files. The new Office 2007 format OOXML is not supported, but is being tweaked and should be compatible soon.

lotus symphony

Lotus Symphony is based on the OpenOffice suite that has been available for some time now. However, I find that it’s better-looking and has more features than OpenOffice. The software is also designed to work seamlessly with the Lotus line of productivity and collaboration tools.

Here are a few screen shots of the three applications:

lotus symphony documents

lotus symphony presentations

lotus symphony spreadsheets

A great set of tools and an alternative to MS Office suite that everyone should check out as soon as possible! Enjoy!

[tags]lotus symphony, ms office alternative, office productivity, ibm lotus[/tags]

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Comments

2 Responses to “IBM offers alternative to MS Office with Lotus Symphony”

  1. Php Web Forms said on : June 3rd, 2008 at 9:22 pm

    I believe the 3 icons for doc, presentation and spreadsheet should be made in 3 different colors. Human can associate colors much better that shapes in the same round logo.

    This color knowledge is so basic. I was wondering why free alternative always failed to do/think simple thing like this.


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  1. 6 Free Office Suites That Are NOT Microsoft | MakeUseOf.com Says:

    [...] 4. IBM Lotus Symphony – IBM Lotus Symphony is a direct competitor to the Microsoft Office suite because it is also a desktop application aimed at individuals and businesses. The suite consists of Symphony Documents, Symphony Presentations, and Symphony Spreadsheets. I wrote about it before, so if interested check out my IBM Symphony review. [...]

    October 13th, 2007 at 9:53 am
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