Free Office Productivity Suite

[nihil]

Yes folks, another one!

This is Lotus Symphony (remember Lotus 1-2-3 and Lotus Smartsuite?) Well around 2000 IBM bought them and now they are IBM Lotus.

This is a commercial grade product to rival MS office. The marketing model seems quite straightforwards: the software is free and you (corporates) pay for support licences.

It works with Windows XP and Vista and with Red Hat and SuSE Linux.

http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp...cat=&x=9&y=12#

Enjoy

EDIT:

Press articles here:

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1...491,00.htm?r=1

http://software.silicon.com/applicat...420,00.htm?r=1

[oofki]

But is it any good?! I think next time I need a free office solution I will check it out... Good catch

[MrLinus]

Why not just use Open Office?

[nihil]

Hi oofki,

But is it any good?!

Well, it was only put on general release (non-beta) on 30 May 2008 so it is early days. At the moment it is fairly basic, but I believe the intention is to port more functionality.

Remember that Lotus Smartsuite Millennium (9.8.2) is their flagship in this area.

Why not just use Open Office?

Because "IBM Lotus" looks better on your CV, and the product is supported by a major IT company which is what corporate users want.

Actually, it is a bit of a rip-off IMO when I think that the only time I have called MS Office support has been to report some bug or other, or to scrounge a free copy

[HTRegz]

Something to keep in mind is that it seems like Symphony is nothing more than a rebranded version of OpenOffice

[Und3ertak3r]

I threw my Beta in the bin..

and yeh HT is correct .. was way too much like OO..


Prefer OO.. and after working with Notes for 2 years?.. IBM is Shite.. can't even write a decent support document.. would use MS before IBM rubbish..