ARMONK, NY - 03 Jun 2008: Open Document Format (ODF) comes of age today as IBM (NYSE: IBM) announces the commercial-grade, general availability of Lotus Symphony , a suite of free, ODF-based software tools for creating and sharing documents, spreadsheets and presentations. This announcement affirms IBM's commitment to evolving office productivity software from static, financially draining software to a dynamic, cost-effective tool that allows businesses to invest in more innovative pursuits. While Lotus Symphony remains a free, easy download from the Web with free online, moderated support, IBM is also announcing fee-based services to support the needs of large organizations. This optional service, IBM Elite Support for Lotus Symphony 1.0, delivers unlimited remote technical support at a level consistent with other IBM software products via an annual subscription to IBM's Passport Advantage or Passport Advantage Express volume licensing programs. Lotus Symphony could save a company with 20,000 employees $8 million in software license fees or potentially more than $4 million in software renewal fees. If it chose to switch to Symphony for only half of its employee population, it could still save several million dollars in license or renewal fees, even if it subscribed to IBM's Elite Support services at $25 per user for 1,000 employees. Launched in September 2007, Lotus Symphony has been downloaded by nearly one million individuals in an open public Beta program.
Lotus Symphony is a truly global product, available in 24 languages, developed by a worldwide team anchored in Beijing, China, and improved through the community of individual users on the Symphony Web site. 'Major technology vendors are lining up to support ODF - even those previously opposed to it,' said Steve Mills, SVP of IBM Software. 'Symphony - backed by enterprise customer support services - is ready for business.' A growing number of businesses are considering decisions to renew their Office licensing agreements, and move up to Office 2007 and Vista. Lotus Symphony 1.0 provides a timely and cost-effective alternative tested by nearly one million people worldwide and backed by IBM. Plugging Into the Power of Web 2.0 Another noteworthy benefit of Lotus Symphony is aligned with Web 2.0 - the newest Internet technology - not the fading era of the personal computer. In the spirit of Web 2.0, Lotus Symphony individual users have the ability to influence the development of the software through feedback on the Symphony site, much the way that content is continuously revised and updated through Wikipedia.
More importantly, IBM offers a set of powerful, open APIs for extending Lotus Symphony with a wide range of plug-ins - including Eclipse and Universal Network Object component model and others. This can empower business people to harness powerful business processes such as enterprise resources planning and customer relationship management directly from their desktop. Companies and governments can integrate Lotus Symphony tools into their custom applications and connect to myriad data sources that allow individuals to work in a single view while presenting and updating data from multiple sources instantly. IBM is offering a free developer toolkit on the Symphony site that enables individual users of Lotus Symphony, as well as independent software developers, to create plug-ins, or software adaptors, and composite applications, or mashups. These can transform static documents into living information streams capable of managing primary business functions such as shipping, sales and fulfillment.
The three core tools comprising Lotus Symphony - Lotus Symphony Documents, Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets and Lotus Symphony Presentations - handle the majority of office productivity tasks that most people perform. Quick reading reference cards and online tutorials on the Lotus Symphony Web site show how easy it is to transfer documents between Symphony and Word, PowerPoint or Excel. Symphony Provides a Foundation for SMBs In a related development, Lotus Symphony is being extended to small businesses within a new turnkey collaboration product called IBM Lotus Foundations , commercially available today. Lotus Symphony will serve as the office productivity software within Lotus Foundations, which also includes Lotus Notes and Domino mail, file management, directory services, firewall, back-up and recovery, anti-virus, and anti-spam features.
Lotus Foundations is part of a broad IBM initiative code-named 'Blue Business Platform' to simplify information technology for small businesses. Local IBM Business Partners are the primary route to market for Lotus Foundations.
A variety of third parties, such as Linux distributors, media companies and IBM Business Partners from North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region are offering Lotus Symphony either as a free, standalone download off the Web or for sale with customized applications.
3.0.1 FixPack 2 / 29 November 2012; 5 years ago ( 2012-11-29) Development status Discontinued in favour of, and.Website IBM Lotus Symphony was a for creating, editing, and sharing text, spreadsheet, presentations, and other documents and the. It was first distributed as commercial, then as, before IBM contributed the suite to the Apache Software Foundation in 2014 for inclusion in the Apache OpenOffice software suite. First released in 2007, the suite has a name similar to the 1980s suite, but the two software suites are otherwise unrelated.
The previous Lotus application suite, is also unrelated. IBM discontinued development of Lotus Symphony in January 2012 with the final release of version 3.0.1, moving future development effort to, and donating the to the. Contents. Features IBM Lotus Symphony consists of:. IBM Lotus Symphony Documents, a program.
IBM Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets, a program. IBM Lotus Symphony Presentations, a. A Web browser based on Each application is split into. Symphony supports the formats as well as the binary formats. It can also export (PDF) files and import files.
Previous support for formats was disabled in Symphony 3. Symphony is based on from (the shell) and 3 (the core office-suite code).
In 2009, IBM created development tools for smartphones to link to IBM's software, which also allow opening file-formats, following a full Symphony later. Lotus Symphony 3.0.1 added enhancements including support for one million spreadsheet rows, bubble charts, and a new design for the home page. On 27 March 2012 a first fixpack update for Lotus Symphony 3.0.1 was released.
On 29 November 2012 a second fixpack update for Lotus Symphony 3.0.1 was released. A version of Symphony, called LotusLive Symphony, was launched in 2011. History Symphony has its roots in the IBM Workplace Managed Client component of. In 2006, IBM introduced Workplace Managed Client version 2.6, which included 'productivity tools' — a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation program — that supported ODF. Workplace used code from OpenOffice.org version 1.1.4, the last version released under the, which allowed for release of binaries of modified versions without releasing changes. Later in 2006, IBM announced that Lotus Notes 8, which already incorporated Workplace technology, would also include the same productivity tools as the Workplace Managed Client. In 2007, IBM released Notes 8, and then released Notes' productivity tools as a standalone application, Symphony, in a beta one month later.
The code in Symphony is the same as that for Notes 8's productivity tools. IBM released version 1.0 of Lotus Symphony in May 2008 as a free download, and introduced three minor upgrades through 2008 and 2009. In 2010, IBM released version 3.0. Symphony 3.0 was based on OpenOffice.org 3.0, though not under the LGPL but under a special arrangement between IBM and Sun (who required copyright assignment of all outside OpenOffice.org contributions). And includes enhancements such as new in its user interface and support for macros, OpenDocument Format 1.2, and. Symphony 3.0 was originally planned to include other existing OpenOffice.org modules, including an equation editor, database software, and a drawing program.
The software was developed by IBM China Development Laboratory, located in, which now develops. On 13 July 2011, IBM announced that it would donate Lotus Symphony to the.
On 23 January 2012, IBM announced version 3.0.1 would be the last version Lotus Symphony and their efforts would be going into the Apache OpenOffice project, including the Symphony user interface. IBM planned to release an 'Apache OpenOffice IBM Edition' after the release of Apache OpenOffice 4, but later decided that it would offer the stock Apache OpenOffice with IBM extensions.
Lotus Symphony Documents 1.2 Beta on Mac OS X Usage share During the event in 2009, IBM confirmed its cost-reduction effort using Lotus Symphony, with the company migrating its 400,000 users from Microsoft Office to Lotus Symphony. In June 2008 IBM urged its 20 000 'strong-techies' employees to use Symphony instead of and later in September 2009 IBM forced all 360 000 employees to use Symphony. In March 2009, a study showed that Lotus Symphony had a 2% in the corporate market. As of February 2010, IBM stated that Lotus Symphony had 12 million users with 50 million downloads in January 2011. Version release dates Beta 1. Released on 18 September 2007 Beta 2.
Released on 5 November 2007 Beta 3. Released on 17 December 2007. Released in 23 languages on 7 January 2008 Beta 4. Released on 1 February 2008. Introduced the Lotus Symphony Developer Toolkit. Revised edition released on 3 March 2008 Version 1.0. Released on 30 May 2008 Version 1.1.
Released on 29 August 2008 Version 1.2. Released on 4 November 2008. Revised edition released on 23 February 2009 Version 1.3. Released on 10 June 2009. Revised edition released on 1 September 2009 Version 3 Beta.
Released on 4 February 2010 Version 3 Beta 2. Released on 4 February 2010. Features: Visual Basic macros, OLE Objects and embedded audio/video; support for nested tables, presentation masters and DataPilot tables for pivoting on large datasets. Version 3 Beta 3. Released on 7 June 2010 Version 3 Beta 4.
Released on 26 August 2010 Version 3.0. Released 21 October 2010 Version 3.0 FixPack 1. Released 13 January 2011 Version 3.0 FixPack 2. Released 20 April 2011 Version 3.0 FixPack 3. Released 20 July 2011 Version 3.0.1. Released 23 January 2012 Version 3.0.1 FixPack 1.
Released 27 March 2012 Version 3.0.1 FixPack 2. Released 29 November 2012. ^ Fiveash, Kelly (19 September 2007).
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Hillesley, Richard (6 July 2011). The H online. Retrieved 9 May 2012. Ed Brill, 14 June 2005. IBM Press Release, 16 May 2006. Candace Lombardi, CNET News, 16 May 2006. Parametric statistics. Ed Brill, 18 September 2007 — see comment 41.
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You can present data or events in this template in two ways – either in a tabular form where the months appear in the left column and the corresponding tasks are mentioned alongside or in the form of an excel sheet where the tasks are arranged in the first column on the left with the months alongside. Free timeline template for word. You can gray out or color code the months when a specific task is set to start or complete. The project timeline template helps you map the monthly timeline of important tasks or events. Project Timeline When using the project timeline template you should make sure that the projected time of events that you have keyed-in match with the actual or real time of the events.
While the interface of IBM's free office suite is sexy, its hunger for system resources and lack of features mean that OpenOffice.org 3 is still the best free office suite. Also, watch out for Symphony's lack of OOXML support. The latest version of Lotus Symphony (version 1.2) came out of beta on 4 November 2008, and in honour of this we thought we would look at the latest release of this historic office program.
Lotus Symphony takes its name from Lotus 1-2-3, a spreadsheet application that helped IBM crack the business market in the 1980s, just as Generation Y was being born. The current incarnation of Lotus Symphony is based on the OpenOffice.org code base.
As such, comparisons to OpenOffice.org are inevitable. Like OpenOffice.Org, Lotus Symphony is free, but it's not open source, it's a proprietary fork of the OpenOffice.org code.
Available in Linux OS X and Windows versions, Lotus Symphony can be downloaded from the IBM website with a free log-in ID. There are also versions for 64-bit operating systems, including 64-bit Linux (w00t!). Unfortunately, Lotus Symphony is both bigger in download size and system footprint than OpenOffice.org. The download is 197MB and once installed the software takes up 404MB. Opening Lotus Symphony rewards the user with a nice clean interface, and the more one uses Lotus Symphony, the stronger this impression becomes. We particularly enjoy the tabbed design that allows you to seamlessly move between different document types. The simple interface might also make it appealing as an office suite for new computer users.
Top ZDNET Reviews. 8.0 There are four components to Lotus Symphony: a document application, a presentation application, a spreadsheet application and a web browser. Like OpenOffice.org, Lotus Symphony uses Open Document Format (ODF) for storing files. However, unlike the new OpenOffice.org 3, Lotus Symphony can't open OOXML files (otherwise known as Microsoft Office 2007's.docx), which could be a real show stopper. Comments from developers on the Lotus Symphony forum note that IBM plans to put support for OOXML into version 1.3. Until then, this lack of support alone is one reason not to use Lotus Symphony.
Lotus Symphony is also seriously hardware-hungry; when just running a single document inside Symphony, it chewed up 115MB of RAM. For best performance, you'll want at least 2GB of RAM and a Core 2 Duo processor to run Symphony under Windows Vista. Watch out, Lotus Symphony is hungry for system resources.
(Credit: Alex Serpo/ZDNet.com.au) As with both OpenOffice.org and Lotus Symphony, transferring OOXML files won't result in perfect re-creation, as the two programs have completely different code bases. More complex OOXML documents might come out looking like well-healed car accident victims — good, but not quite the way they were. Another drawback for those looking to migrate from MS Office is macros. As with OpenOffice.org, macros created in Excel can't be transferred; they must be re-created. Word processing The word processing offering in Lotus Symphony is very solid, and if you're principally or exclusively looking to create such documents, Lotus Symphony should meet your needs.
The word processing application in Lotus Symphony has substantially less tools than are available in MS Word, but it covers all the essentials. This screenshot shows all the possible tool bars enabled. (Credit: Alex Serpo/ZDNet.com.au) Symphony's documents offerings contains all the essentials, including spell checking and good formatting options including the ability to track changes.
It also makes nice tables. MS Office users shouldn't have too much trouble migrating, but might miss some features. OpenOffice.org users won't have any trouble, as the Symphony documents interface is basically a simplified OpenOffice.org interface. As with OpenOffice.org, Symphony easily exports to PDF documents with only a few clicks — a great feature. Presentations When we looked at the now historical, we were disappointed by the lack of decent-looking presentation templates.
The templates available in Symphony on the other hand, are half decent. We think the presentations functionality should suit the needs of most users, and we were pleased to see that you can still include animations for that extra bit of flair. Turn over to see our views on Lotus Symphony spreadsheets, and our verdict. Spreadsheets In our review of OpenOffice.org 2, we noted that MS Office's Excel remained the most powerful spreadsheet program we have tested. OpenOffice.org isn't far behind Excel, but if you're a heavy spreadsheet user you may find it frustrating. Much like OpenOffice.org, Symphony's list of formulas should meet the needs of all but the most mathematically astute, in spite of that its finesse in creating graphs is limited compared to Excel.
Ibm Lotus Notes Sign In
We managed to make a reasonable graph showing the exponential decline in ice mass when melting in a glass of water. However, we couldn't seem to find a way to label the X and Y axis, which was disappointing. We managed to put together some decent graphs in Symphony, but power users will be disappointed.
(Credit: Alex Serpo/ZDNet.com.au) We think that scientists, engineers and those in finance who regularly create complicated graphics in spreadsheets would still be better off forking out for MS Office. Web browser Yes, Lotus Symphony contains a web browser, and it's painfully slow. We put it side by side Firefox 3 and Google Chrome, which both left it in the dust. Symphony's web browser creates a process called 'IEOOP.exe' which suggests to us that it's based on IE's engine, which in the current browser wars is both slower and adheres less closely to IEEE web standards. (Why not, IBM?). It also has almost none of the functionality we normally associate with today's basic web browsers — like making bookmarks or remembering passwords, much less advanced functionality like plug-ins or RSS. We can't imagine using it.
Verdict Value for money is a key criteria when reviewing all hardware and software at ZDNet.com.au, and had Lotus Symphony not been free we would have given it a much lower Editors' Rating. As it stands, Lotus Symphony is an aesthetically appealing office suite which is slow and light on features. If you're looking for the best free alternative, go with OpenOffice.org 3. But if you just need a basic office suite which integrates well with Lotus Notes, then Lotus Symphony isn't a bad choice. It might also be a nice choice for users new to computers, because of its simple and intuitive interface.
Businesses looking to roll out Lotus Symphony should carefully consider its lack of support for OOXML documents, as well as its hunger for system resources. Related Topics: Top ZDNET Reviews.
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