IBM offers free PC software

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IBM offers free PC software
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NEW YORK: IBM plans to mount its most ambitious challenge in years to Microsoft’s dominance of personal computer software, by offering free programs for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations.
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The company was to announce the desktop software, called IBM Lotus Symphony, at an event Tuesday in New York. The programs will be available as free downloads from the IBM Web site.
IBM’s Lotus-branded proprietary programs already compete with Microsoft products for e-mail, messaging and work group collaboration.
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But the Symphony software is a free alternative to Microsoft’s mainstay Office programs - Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The Office business is huge and lucrative for Microsoft, second only to its Windows operating system as a profit maker.
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Of course, OpenOffice is free and has been available for years. Maybe more people will go for it now that it has IBM’s imprimatur.
I haven’t tried the IBM suite because it takes 1 gig of RAM so my machine can’t run it.
 
I’ve been using Open Office at home for a couple years, and have had no problems with it. On the other hand, I don’t share files with anyone, so the software I use at home doesn’t matter.

Competition is a good thing, and I think everyone will benefit from realistic alternatives to Microsoft Office. I wish Lotus Symphony much success.

Edit:
I may be mistaken, but it appears that the download for Lotus Symphony is not on IBM’s main site. I think the new software package has its own website:
symphony.lotus.com/software/l…hony/home.jspa

Please correct me if I am wrong.
 
Does anyone else remember Lotus Symphony from about 20 years ago? It was a multi-function office system suite. I remember the plastic case it came in could have withstood WW2 without a scratch.
 
I have been using and loving openoffice.org for over a year now. I am currently 100% open source, running kubuntu linux 7.04. Unlike windows this is great for those of us on a fixed budget and unable to pay microsoft a wad of cash for its office suite and operating system. Linux also runs on pcs that are too slow for xp, let alone vista.

Favorite programs (all free and some have windows versions)​

abiword word processor very light, good for old computers
Evolution calender, organizer, email
Firefox Best Browser on the planet
Thunderbird Email Program
Audacity Soundrecorder
Amarok Media player
miro Podcast Viewer
Firewire peer to peer client (file sharing)
Gimp Image Editor
Inkscape Vector graphics editor
scribus desktop publisher

Bibletime
The Sword Project (free computer bible)
 
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