Download IBM Lotus Symphony beta 1

IBM released the first beta a few days ago released of its Lotus Symphony office suite, which will henceforth be based on OpenOffice.org. The package currently consists of the Lotus Symphony Documents, Lotus Symphony Presentations and Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets components that allow you to create text documents, presentations and spreadsheets. The created documents are saved in the OpenDocument format by default, but can also be saved in other formats such as those of Microsoft Office 97/2000/XP. Currently, Lotus Symphony is officially supported only on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, and Redhat Enterprise Linux 5. The announcement of this first beta version looks like this:

Beginning today at www.ibm.com/software/lotus/symphony, business, academic, governmental and consumer users alike can download this enterprise-grade office software, which is the same tool inside some of IBM’s most popular collaboration products, such as the recently released Lotus Notes 8. In addition, these tools can be used to seamlessly extend a business process or custom application to create dynamic composite applications.

There are three core applications that make up the Lotus Symphony tools: Lotus Symphony Documents, Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets and Lotus Symphony Presentations. These intuitive software tools, which support Windows and Linux desktops, are designed to handle the majority of office productivity tasks that workers typically perform. Lotus Symphony supports multiple file formats including Microsoft Office and Open Document Format (ODF), and also can output content in PDF format.

Increasingly, users of productivity software are challenging the confines of the desktop. IBM Lotus Symphony provides a fresh, people-oriented way to create, contribute and reuse content instantly across a wide range of applications. In addition, because it is based on ODF, Lotus Symphony allows organizations to access, use and maintain all their documents for the long-term, without worrying about ongoing software licensing and royalty fees.

“IBM is committed to opening office desktop productivity applications just as we helped open enterprise computing with Linux,” said Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive, IBM Software Group. “The lifeblood of any organization is contained in thousands of documents. With the Open Document Format, businesses can unlock their information, making it universally accessible on any platform and on the Web in highly flexible ways.”

Last week, IBM announced its membership in OpenOffice.org and intent to make important technical and resource contributions. By teaming with the community to accelerate the rate of innovation in the office productivity software marketplace, IBM expects to deliver higher value to users of its products and services. This will lead to a broader range of solutions and ODF-supported applications that draw from the OpenOffice.org technology.

IBM Lotus Symphony is consistent with IBM’s strategy to help people find new ways to work together. The no-charge IBM Lotus Symphony software integrates editor functionality into everyday desktop and business applications.

IBM Lotus Symphony gives users the freedom to create and share information, as well as assemble composite applications that link to business processes. For example, IBM Lotus Symphony may be able to help businesses complete tasks more rapidly and efficiently by connecting to relevant information from a variety of sources. Companies can integrate IBM Lotus Symphony tools into their custom applications and easily connect to myriad data sources to create composite applications. These rich applications enable users to work in a single view, and present data from multiple sources instantly.

In one scenario, ERP systems can be linked directly into a user’s workspace. The user can submit queries to the ERP system which will respond with the requested data. This is delivered to a userfs workspace, where IBM Lotus Symphony Documents automatically populates the fields in a customer’s shipping invoice. All of this can be accomplished immediately, with the user having a consistently consolidated view of the task at hand. Keeping the focus on this consolidated workspace may lead to improved user productivity.[break]