Lotus Symphony

I recently installed IBM Lotus Symphony. It's not a bad suite of applications especially when you consider that it is free and from a major corporation. While its appearance is fresh and clean you will need to spend some time getting use to its organization, icons, and nomenclature. None of the components (word processing, spreadsheet, presentation) are as bloated with feature as MS Office, but they do cover the basics.

Here's the biggest fault I have with current beta version of IBM Lotus Symphony (beta v. 2)Users are able to open and save documents in MS Office 2003 format, but users of Office 2007 beware! The current beta version does not support Office 2007 XML document formats; you cannot open or save in the 2007 format.

The next fault is somewhat minor for the home user, but potentially significant for small business users. Unlike OpenOffice, Symphony lacks a database component.

As I see it, there are still two major advantages to Symphony. Unlike its cousin, OpenOffice, Symphony is being developed by a single vendor which should imply the availability of technical support at some level. The availability of technical support is often cited as a major reason why businesses and individuals are not eager to adopt open source applications. The other advantage is its price (free) and how this is an attractive characteristic for home and small business users.