Network World: No alternative to Microsoft Office? IBM begs to differ

September 10 2009

Earlier today, IBM issued a press release highlighting new plug-ins and widgets for Lotus Symphony.  The point of the release is to emphasize customer choice and flexibility at a time when office productivity suites are getting yet another look.  Further, this announcement highlights that Symphony is about being more than just a word processor/spreadsheet/presentation tool, and is really a full programmable client with integration across the Lotus product portfolio.

Network World picked up the story, after I spoke with John Fontana:

But for now IBM, which offers Symphony as a free download and the default productivity software in Notes/Domino 8, is adding a new set of drag-and-drop widgets that include integration with popular Microsoft backend software such as the SharePoint Server. The software also integrates with Google Gadgets and Lotus's own Sametime and Connections platforms.

Part of the widget package is the OrgChart Widget, which integrates with profiles in Lotus Connections so users can be added into meetings that convene online with a single click.

Other widgets include the Learning Widget, which combines local and Web-based information; a Team Workspace Widget that provides access to documents stored in Lotus Quickr or Microsoft SharePoint; the Symphony 2 Wiki Widgets provide conversion of documents for publishing on wikis; the Treasure Box Widget keeps a "favorites list" inside Symphony of frequently used documents, graphics and applications; and the Export Graphic Widget supports export of common formats such as .gif, .jpeg, .png, .bmp.

In addition, the ChartShare Widget provides screen sharing for up to 20 people with support for co-creation and editing of presentations. It also supports integration with Lotus Sametime Unyte Live's meeting capability. The ChartShare Widget also gives presence information on every contributor to the presentation and a link to instant messaging.
Some good quotes in the article, too.

Link: Network World: No alternative to Microsoft Office? IBM begs to differ >

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Lotus Symphony  Add/View Comments [12]

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  1. 1  Bilal Jaffery http://www.bilal.ca | 9/10/2009 3:28:48 PM

    Love the quotes! Love em'! Infact, I am passing it to some of my Microsoft buddies =)

  1. 2  Brett H  | 9/10/2009 3:35:53 PM

    Great news, but the link in the story on Network World is incorrect, it's missing a "." between "lotus" and "com".

  1. 3  Vaughan Rivett http://www.vaughanrivett.co.nz | 9/10/2009 3:54:34 PM

    Thanks for that update. I didn’t realise that there were some symphony updates out. I have been interested in what symphony can do, however, I have not found a lot of technical detail around. I see that you make mention of various drag-and-drop widgets. Do you have anymore information on this.

    This is all good for my Lotus Foundations story. I just need to work out how to make Symphony look real HOT :-)

  1. 4  Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 9/10/2009 5:19:24 PM

    Don't forget that Notes 8.5.1 will provide a Symphony spreadsheet container, so you can pull Notes data into a spreadsheet live in a composite application. I'm sure businesses waste many man-hours re-keying data, so here's a good way to cut out some of those pointless tasks.

  1. 5  Mike Kinder http://www.acadiasolutions.com | 9/10/2009 6:22:40 PM

    Great post Ed, glad to see the marketing campaigns are picking up.

  1. 6  Bill  | 9/10/2009 6:44:38 PM

    Oracle's purchase of Sun (and thus control of the OpenOffice.org project) certainly provides an opening for Symphony. Our company has standardised ODF (and OpenOffice) but Oracle's involvement does make us nervous ...

  1. 7  Bill  | 9/10/2009 6:52:14 PM

    Ed,

    Continuing on the theme that Oracles involvement in OpenOffice may leave a vacuum in the (credible) open source office productivity alternatives...

    Is there an opportunity for IBM to "Open Source" Symphony, especially given that the underlying components (OpenOffice, Eclipse, and Java) are either fully or partially open ??

  1. 8  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 9/10/2009 9:23:08 PM

    @7 Bill, it's not our plan to open-source Symphony itself. The main issue right now is our move from the earlier OpenOffice codebase to the 3.x codebase... which itself is, as you note, open source. We would like to focus on the OpenOffice.org community and make smart contributions to that versus the effort required to turn our commercial effort into its own open-source project.

  1. 9  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 9/11/2009 8:51:25 AM

    Darren, can you explain more about that? Is there a demo video or screenshots we can look at?

  1. 10  Bill Geimer  | 9/14/2009 12:31:44 AM

    I read most of Office 2007 documents ins Pages and Numbers from iWork 09. Not sure I will miss xml files at work through. Too big and to incompatible with anti-spam products.

  1. 11  Patrick Brennan  | 9/14/2009 9:57:05 AM

    Symphony is a good product, we use it company wide. But, to be honest, the link given in the Network World article where to download it from is a dead link, and trying to download it from the IBM site is a nightmare. In fact, most of the comments on the download site are from people who want to download it, but cannot. Needs to be easier, most people who know about Symphony are Domino admin types, probably have 5 minutes free time a day, and cant waste time trying to search "Symphony 1.3" on the Lotus site and then going through contortions to get a download.

  1. 12  Lawrence Micallef http://lcem.com | 2/1/2010 3:58:52 AM

    { Link }

    nice to see Archos mention using Symphony on their new tablet PC :)