The Lotus Symphony

Lotus Symphony is an implementation that runs under the Lotus Notes application platform as well as the underlying Lotus Expeditor application platform. Lotus Symphony is available as an IBM complimentary offering, that is, at no charge for the individual user, the small and medium business (SMB ), or the enterprise customer. It logically follows, nonetheless, that applications compatible with ODF, such as Lotus Symphony, will enable large and small business organizations, government entities, as well as individuals, to engage in true document exchange collaborative activities.
Lotus Symphony is based on the Open Document Format (ODF) standard-which means you’re not locked into proprietary file formats, software licensing agreements and upgrades. Finally, free tools and freedom of choice.

Lotus Symphony is a suite of software tools for creating text, spreadsheet and presentation documents based on OpenOffice code. The leading market for Symphony to date is the United States, with about 25% of downloads. Lotus Symphony is IBM’s attempt to thrust its free desktop productivity suite into the ring with OpenOffice, Sun StarOffice, and ThinkFree. Despite similarities in word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation functions, Lotus Symphony isn’t nearly as seasoned. Lotus Symphony is clearly targeted at the capabilities of the popular Microsoft Office suite.

Lotus Symphony is a derivative of OpenOffice.org based. It is available for free download from IBM. Lotus Symphony is once again an active brand, the product of IBM having successfully fooled everyone into thinking it was just now developing , or beginning to develop, a new applications suite in cooperation with Sun Microsystems. That’s extremely clever marketing, especially coming from IBM. Lotus Symphony is a multi-function, fully integrated business software package which provides users with the ability to create documents which mix text, numeric data, and graphs and produce presentation quality output. It includes a windowing capability, macros, and a command programming language.

Lotus Symphony is an enhancement of Lotus 1-2-3, the powerful, integrated office management software program, combining the five most useful business applications: electronic spreadsheet, business graphics, data management, word processing, and communications in one powerful system. Lotus Symphony is fully integrated into Lotus Notes 8, providing users with easy access to productivity tools as part of their desktop experience, without having to launch a separate program. Symphony desktop offerings are part of the broader technology trend of enabling faster, more automated movement of information within and between organizations using the Open Document Format.

Users can enjoy the easy-to-use interface and online community for templates, tips and support. Businesses can control software acquisition and upgrade costs, provide ability to compatibility with Microsoft Office file formats, protect future access to documents with support for ODF and support a global workforce with Lotus Symphony’s native language support for over 23 languages. Users can install any number of these additional language packs. In the globally integrated business world, this allows users to interact with Symphony in their native languages but also create content in a different language with the confidence of language specific spell check support.