Comments on: Save $400 on Microsoft Office: Use Lotus Symphony instead

Like a younger, hipper version of OpenOffice, Lotus Symphony razzle-dazzles with its sleek interface and robust feature set. And it's absolutely free.

[gsmiller88]

Thanks for supporting Mac OS X, IBM, it's greatly appreciated! :D

[ /sarcasm ]

[protagonistic]

Ah, hasn't Lotus been around a lot longer than that? IBM purchased the company many years ago. The WP was at one time renamed to Ami Pro and was part of a suite program.

[Symphony_Prod_Mgr]

Rick,

Thanks for your interest and recommendation of Lotus Symphony. I wanted to clear up a point you made in your post. Symphony is available on Windows and Linux today. In addition we have a Mac OS version planned for early summer. We showed an early version of the Mac code at our Lotusphere show in January.

We are working on improving the performance of the code and expect it to get better with follow on releases.

[rickbroida]

Thanks for the correction! Not sure how I missed the Linux version, but I've updated the post accordingly. Bad brain. Bad!

[smdelfin]

Symphony only has 3 modules (documents, spreadsheets and presentations) that seem to make it targeted for the majority of (non-power) users. For feature-by-feature comparison, it's not on the same ring with OpenOffice or MS Office. But if the needs of the majority of the users can be satisfied by these 3 modules, then I hope Symphony saturates the market.

[mhinnewyork]

Open Office is a mature product, Symphony is in beta. Both are free. Why would anyone chose Symphony?

[rickbroida]

Symphony is much more user-friendly, IMHO. I think it's a better choice for students, grandparents, novice users, etc.