Lotus symphony (not covered in the giant word processor roundup) released free

[urlwolf]

I just realized that Lotus symphony (not covered in the giant word processor roundup) has been released free.
http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/product_ss_pe.jspa

How good is it? Anyone using it?

It has tabs...

[Dormouse]

Old name. But new version based on Open Office.

Never saw any reason to try it out instead of Open Office, Star Office.

[lanux128]

wasn't it always free? here is a related thread where user johnfdeluca introduced this suite sometime ago. anyway for the record, it's based on an earlier version of Open Office.

[40hz]

I gave it a serious tryout and I wasn't all that impressed. I used it exclusively for a little over a week and wound up uninstalling it. To my mind, it has an odd feel about it.

One of my clients did an extended formal evaluation of productivity applications in February of this year. They put Word 2007, IBM Symphony, and Open Office through their paces. Bottom line: they overwhelmingly preferred Open Office Writer as their word processor.

For a stand alone word processing application, the relatively unknown Tomahawk PDF+ v3.0 Free Edition is an excellent choice. (http://www.nativewinds.montana.com/software/tpdfplus.html) This app deserves to be a lot better known. They also have a "Gold" edition that has a lot more features, but it will set you back about $36. IMHO still a bargain.

[MerleOne]

I installed recently Symphony of a Vista Machine and was quite surprised to see an excellent compatibility with Excel files, where functions are the same whereas for OpenOffice, last time I checked, they have their own functions, which is very annoying for me.  I also like the "tab" approach and the fact that Symphony doesn't take over your .doc, .xls associations like openoffice where its' almost impossible to remove.

[tomos]

from what I've read it's improved a lot since it came out - I havent tried it - I think Zaine had tried it but think it was too "new" at that stage for the roundup