IBM Lotus Symphony

[johnfdeluca]

Disclaimer:  I work for IBM so I may be biased but:

IBM just released Lotus Symphony a free office suite (word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program) which handles Open Document Format and compatible with M$oft products.  Although in beta, it's very polished and professional.  I've been using Microsoft products for years and this is the first free alternative that I can actually see myself using (even if I didn't work for IBM).  Having opened may presentation and spreadsheets files created in Microsoft (with formulas and extensive formatting), it seems to work just as if opened in MS.

http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.jspa

You must register first to download but hey....it's free.

[attach]

[lanux128]

johnfdeluca, nice knowing about this.. maybe i will have a go.. anyway, some screenshots would be nice..

[Beth UK]

Looks interesting...

Bit confusing though as this release comes just days after IBM apparently joined up with OpenOffice:

10 September 2007 -- The OpenOffice.org community today announced that IBM will be joining the community to collaborate on the development of OpenOffice.org software. IBM will be making initial code contributions that it has been developing as part of its Lotus Notes product, including accessibility enhancements, and will be making ongoing contributions to the feature richness and code quality of OpenOffice.org. Besides working with the community on the free productivity suite's software, IBM will also leverage OpenOffice.org technology in its products.

And then on September 18th:

NEW YORK, September 18, 2007 - IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced IBM Lotus Symphony, a suite of free software tools for creating and sharing documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

What a wonderfully dualistic world we live in!

[johnfdeluca]

johnfdeluca, nice knowing about this.. maybe i will have a go.. anyway, some screenshots would be nice..

I posted a pic but there are many other pics via the link

[Dirhael]

I'll probably try it out at some point, but not until it has been optimized.

* Supported Windows platforms: Windows XP, Windows Vista
* Supported Linux platforms: SLED 10, RHEL 5, Redhat5
* 900MB disk space minimum
* 1GB RAM memory minimum
* US English locale

I may have 2GB of RAM in my PC, but to require 1GB minimum of it for these types of applications is beyond insane!


Also, just hearing the name "Lotus" again makes me crawl up in a dark corner while screaming out of fear.

[lanux128]

I may have 2GB of RAM in my PC, but to require 1GB minimum of it for these types of applications is beyond insane!

that is quite a steep requirement..

[PhilB66]

Cybernetnews posted a short review and a download link. See Download IBM Lotus Symphony Without Registration.

[iphigenie]

You dont have to worry that if you register with IBM you will be swamped with anything, or sold on, so there is no need to bypass the registration.

Heck in the UK you can't get a sales rep to call you back about a demo of a 15K product

[mrainey]

Cybernetnews posted a short review and a download link.

So it's a slowed-down version of an older version of Open Office and requires a gigabyte of RAM?   

[Darwin]

Interesting - I missed this when it first went up. The gig of RAM requirement is a bit rich - I wonder if that will be amended? Having said that, older versions of OpenOffice were pretty resource intensive, maybe IBM recognises this and is <ahem> covering its butt?

I think I'll keep my eye on this, but won't be jumping on board just yet.

JohnFDeluca - thanks for alerting us to it.

[Ralf Maximus]

I'd *love* to have an alternative to MS Office, but so much of what I do is based on automation.  So far none of the free alternatives have supported VBA or any serious extension capability.  Symphony "macros" are simply not enough.

So until somebody publishes a com interface or an API or something I have to opt out.  Alas...

[billwill4u]

Dirhael, where did you see the 900MG hard drive space and 1GB of memory?

These are the system specs I see when I go to the IBM site for Lotus Symphony.

What are the client system requirements?

    * Lotus Symphony supports both Microsoft Windows® and Linux® platforms.

      Note: Be sure your system meets these client system requirements:

      * Supported Windows platforms: Windows XP, Windows Vista
      * Supported Linux platforms: SLED 10, RHEL 5, Redhat5
      * 750MB disk space minimum on Linux and 540M on Windows
      * 512MB RAM memory minimum
      * US English locale

[lanux128]

also check out xbeta flash movies for more screenshots..

• IBM Lotus Symphony:a flash movie

[Ampa]

Beta 4 is out (as of 1st Feb 2008) and now includes a developers toolkit, dedicated developers page on our website and a support forum for developers.

I didn't have to register to get it, there is a clearly marked option to download without registering

It is certainly a lot prettier than OpenOffice.

Ampa