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IBM debuts beta of Lotus Symphony 4.0 for Linux

By Ed Oswald, BetaNews

March 28, 2008, 2:02 PM

The Armonk, N.Y. company's software is based on code from OpenOffice, and is being marketing as an alternative to Microsoft Office.

Symphony is based on the Open Document Format standard, and includes tools for users to import Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF files into the suite. IBM says this would make it easier to integrate the suite into current deployments.

The Linux version of Symphony is now in beta, and available for download from CNR.com, a Linux software distribution service operated by Linspire. The site supports several Linux distributions including Freespire 2.0, Linspire 6.0, Ubuntu 7.04 and 7.10.

It was not immediately clear when the software would become available from other distributors.

IBM looks to be attempting to attract business from companies who might find deployments of Microsoft's Office platform too expensive. In fact, in comments announcing the availability, IBM executives pretty much said exactly that.

"Symphony was designed to provide freedom of choice and freedom from overpriced commodities," Lotus software chief Kevin Cavanaugh said. "Symphony and Linux are a natural fit for the growing ranks of businesses and individuals who have better things to do with their money."

IBM has not announced when they plan to make the final version of Symphony 4.0 available.

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By fewt

edited Mar 28, 2008 - 7:25 PM

Hmm. While it *LOOKS* ok, I see that it follows some of the GNOME HIG, however once I've opened documents, some of the controls revert to wine looking controls.

IE: The GUI is somewhat pretty (the fonts in the interface suck, fix that), but when you've created a document right click on something.

What we have here is a Win95 context menu. So, is this OpenOffice for Windows based, yet running on Linux in Wine? That's sure what it looks like.

If it is, I have to question whomever wrote that's credentials.

Hey IBM; OpenOffice is a Native Linux application, try embedding that instead.

If it is 100% Linux native, how about some more GUI work to make it look like the rest of the system.

Thanks.

Score: 0

By God Dammit

posted Mar 29, 2008 - 6:42 AM

Isn't Symphony supposed to be a version of OpenOffice.org that looks just like MS Office 2007 for Windows?

Score: 0

By fewt

posted Mar 29, 2008 - 9:33 AM

If so, they've failed.

Score: 0

By crashoverride

posted Mar 30, 2008 - 8:52 PM

Good....Microsoft could have done a much better job with the Office 07 UI and the last thing we need as a copy of it.

Score: 0

By sjc001

posted Mar 28, 2008 - 8:14 PM

It is still a beta. Much can change before the final is released.

Score: 0

By sjc001

posted Mar 28, 2008 - 6:23 PM

Looks interesting. I'm downloading it now from CNR.

Score: 0

By zridling

posted Mar 28, 2008 - 6:04 PM

Just another brick in the wall in favor of the Linux desktop. In three years, when it's time for XP-SP3 business clients to make a decision to stay with Microsoft or make the switch to GNU/Linux, Lotus Symphony will be an attractive lure, given its more efficient UI than Office 2007's, and its support for both .doc and ODF files.
________________________________________________
MS-OOXML — why would anyone use that crap since publishing houses and academia have all banned it to date?

Score: 0

By chirayu

posted Mar 31, 2008 - 7:18 PM

in 3 years? I find it hard to believe. There are enough problems with user friendly winblows. I doubt regular desktop users in non IT businesses can come anywhere near using GNU/Linux anytime soon.

But we will see..

Score: 0

By bousozoku

posted Mar 28, 2008 - 4:33 PM

Considering that the original Lotus Symphony was terrible software, it probably wasn't the best idea to revive the name since corporate IT people would probably remember.

That said, why would they redecorate OpenOffice and leave out parts instead of cleaning up and porting the current Lotus software or revive OfficeVision, which was fairly portable?

IBM always has a plan but even to IBM customers, they rarely make sense.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Mar 28, 2008 - 3:20 PM

From the website:

With Lotus Symphony, you can import, edit, and save a variety of file formats including Microsoft® Office® files. You can even export your documents to Adobe® Portable Document Format (PDF). The tools work with computers running both Microsoft Windows® and Linux® environments, with support for Apple® Macintosh® to come. Lotus Symphony supports Microsoft Office 97/XP/2000, Microsoft Office 2003 XML, and Microsoft Rich Text Format but does not support the OOXML format used by Microsoft Office 2007.

Note that this is not due to inability. They have *chosen* not to support OOXML. At least, not in Symphony. They have stated they will support Office 2007 documents in "certain applications".

Can't wait to see how quickly that changes as more and more companies (like mine) make the switch to Office 2007.

Score: 0

By zridling

posted Mar 28, 2008 - 6:00 PM

Why would anyone bother to support MS-OOXML when Microsoft cannot even support it accurately? You cannot convert a Microsoft document back and forth between the .doc binary format and MS-OOXML with any fidelity. Besides, the thousands of problems that MS-OOXML creates and contains are well-documented all over the web. Look for Microsoft itself to abandon the format within 3-4 years tops (Win7-SP1).

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

posted Mar 29, 2008 - 3:17 PM

Why would anyone bother to support MS-OOXML when Microsoft cannot even support it accurately?

You keep parroting your idols who keep saying this, but they never back it up.

They've failed at every turn to provide one bit of the standard that a fully updated Office 2007 does not comply with.

Stop posting this BS. No-one but El Dingo is listening.

Score: 0

By frankwick

posted Mar 28, 2008 - 4:19 PM

We're in a phased roll-out to 2007 also. Must say this is the best Office upgrade in a long time. Outlook and Excel, in particular, or very nice.

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Mar 28, 2008 - 4:23 PM

Interesting to hear what other folks like or don't like about certain parts of 2007. It's interesting you mention Outlook and Excel both because those are probably the two I am having the most issues with.

Outlook only because I expected more (silly me), and Excel because I can no longer tear-away my formatting tools. In 2000/2003 you can tear the border, fill, and font color drop-downs away from the menu and place them anywhere you want (ala Photoshop palettes). In 2007 I have yet to find a way to do that (which does not mean a way doesn't exist, I just haven't found it yet.)

Not a huge thing, but it bugs me to no end when applying formatting to my spreadsheets. I suppose the same issue exists in Word, but I never really used them there.

I hope to God someone figures out how to accomplish this in O2k7 before I lose my mind.

Score: 0

By God Dammit

posted Mar 29, 2008 - 6:48 AM

Personally I don't see the point to moving the various menu bars around instead of leaving them at their default locations unless you have a really low resolution monitor.

Score: 0

By RobertM

posted Mar 28, 2008 - 3:41 PM

Isn't it because it's based on OpenOffice.org, which doesn't support OOXML? (At least not yet; I know it's in the works for OO.o 3.0.)

Score: 0

By fewt

posted Mar 28, 2008 - 6:42 PM

There is a converter that will read and write Office 2007 docs, but it's not installed by default on any OS that I know of (I may just not know that it is installed somewhere).

Packaged for Ubuntu:

http://www.getdeb.net/ap....org+OpenXML+Translator

Score: 0

By PC_Tool

edited Mar 28, 2008 - 3:45 PM

We'll see when Symphony 5.0 comes out, I guess.

Depends on if they intend to fork or continue to base their suite off current OO.o versions.

They've done some heavy lifting already with this app (Symphony), and it really is slick compared to OO.o, so I find it hard to believe they couldn't have added OOXML support had they wanted to, and there's plenty of sources out there citing IBM's "lack of interest" (to put it mildly) in OOXML.

I just thought it was cute that they supported MS Office, well...at least the non-published, non-open formats. :p

Score: 0

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