Comments on: IBM’s Lotus Symphony proves it has what it takes to compete in the dog-eat-dog world of productivity application software.

By: Griselda Flamenco

Griselda Flamenco — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 22:39:50 +0000

Mostly I agree with what you are saying in addition your logic is so on point that a fifth grader would be able to understand it.

By: Geoffrey Alexander

Geoffrey Alexander — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:58:05 +0000

Lotus Freelance Graphics was to my mind definitely the best of the major presentation programs, a shame it appears not to have been included in Symphony.
If Symphony wants to stand out from the crowd, why not include a simple ‘To Do List’ with ‘Carry Forward’ for tasks to be followed up? It need not be complicated, just a set of two or three lists for ‘Urgent,’ ‘Important’ and ‘Long Term Planning’ or something along those lines. A ‘Time Tracker’ would also make a difference, not hard to make but such tweaks would set it apart from all the usual stuff.
(To see what I’m getting at, look up the free programs by SpaceJock.)

By: Ian

Ian — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 14:30:19 +0000

You probably know this by now, but I’m not sure how many readers finding this page would (it’s the top hit on Google for “IBM Lotus Symphony web browser”): Symphony 3 is now out of the beta stages and the stable 3.0 release is available.

The big difference between Symphony and OpenOffice.org, which I’m guessing also accounts for the speed differences in the two applications, is that Symphony is missing OpenOffice’s database, drawing, and equation editing modules. If you need any of those things, OpenOffice is definitely what you’ll have to use.

If all you need is a word processor, a spreadsheet program, and presentation program, Symphony is definitely the faster alternative. Unfortunately for Symphony, I’m guessing a lot of people and businesses looking to migrate from Microsoft Office probably need that database element that Symphony lacks and OpenOffice has.

By: DKartch

DKartch — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:15:51 +0000

Yes, IBM really ought to market this software. I just barely found out about Lotus Symphony and it’s been out for how long now? Free is a big promotion, especially for Microsoft Office users.

By: Chrsitopher Wilde

Chrsitopher Wilde — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 13:10:44 +0000

just installed the latest version – found it as I was fed up with openoffice’s sluggish and clumsy performance, and its awesome, can’t believe there is still so little hype about this.

By: dougit

dougit — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 07:58:31 +0000

version 3 of this application suite is great! I plan on writing an update to this review when IBM’s Lotus Symphony is out of Beta.

By: Albert

Albert — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 01:25:27 +0000

The download process for this application from IBM is like an IQ test in-and-of-itself, and many Mactards will fail this test, and never get to the actual download button…

IBM, we need “One-Click-Solutions” for the general Mac-using community if you want to see a wide level of adaptation with this application set.

By: Stroman

Stroman — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 05:55:57 +0000

Nice application

By: Ron

Ron — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 19:24:01 +0000

IBM just came out with Lotus Symphony ver. 3 beta 2 just a couple of days ago. It is available for download and works on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

It is still a bit rough around the edges, as most betas are, but the UI upgrades are nice, as are all the additional features.