Miki

IBM is challenging Microsoft's dominance with Office suite software, with a new product line dubbed IBM symphony. Its a free alternative to products such as Microsoft Office which are highly priced.

Comprised of three applications -- a word processor (Lotus Symphony Documents), a spreadsheet (Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets), and a presentation creator (Lotus Symphony Presentations) -- Symphony supports both Windows (XP, Vista, 2000) and Linux operating systems. (IBM says a version for the Mac OS is coming, but it hasn't said when.) Each app can open and save in a variety of file formats, including Office (2003/XP/97; not 2007) and ODF (Open Document Format), as well as save files as PDFs.

Symphony is available as a Public beta and requires a minimum of 540mb of Hard drive space for Windows and 750mb for Linux, and requires 512mb of ram. Unlike many other Office suites that require you to open up a separate process, Symphony instead opens up in a single window with a tabbed interface that integrates all three applications.

IBM says that Symphony 1.0 will be available in early 2008 as a free download.

Source: infoworld

Download: IBM Symphony Beta

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tofunater

challenging ms always rocks, but I am an open office fan personally.

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Miki

well, might want to give it a try once the official release is out, might have a change of heart.

Take a look at this review by PCMag

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