IBM in challenge to Microsoft with a free office software
IBM announced IBM Lotus Symphony, a free alternative to Microsoft's mainstay Office programs - Word, Excel and PowerPoint. According to The Register IBM plans to achieve world dominance of personal computer software, by offering free programs for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations.
IBM`s offerings are versions of open-source software developed in a
consortium called OpenOffice.org. The Lotus Symphony products will
support the Microsoft Office formats
as well as the OpenDocument Format. But analysts note that technical
translators are not entirely foolproof; Symphony software may easily
translate the words from a Microsoft Word document, but some of the
fonts and formatting may be lost.
IBM's Lotus-branded proprietary programs already compete with Microsoft products for e-mail, messaging and work group collaboration. Yet, it views its Symphony desktop offerings as part of a broader technology trend that will open the door to faster, more automated movement of information within and between organizations.
The Office programs will be available as free downloads from the IBM Web site.
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