Back in 1983 I was the software development manager responsible for localizing Lotus Symphony into French, German and Italian. It was the beginning of a ten year career at Lotus that took me for 3 years to the then HQ in Cambridge Mass. as International Czar and changed my life for ever!
So imagine my delight when IBM recently re-released Symphony. Well not quite - they re-used the name - a first I think for a software product. The original Symphony was an integrated software application for DOS and the new Lotus Symphony is a free desktop productivity suite that includes a word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software. So you can see the similarity.
It supports the OpenDocument format (ODF), as well as Microsoft Office and Lotus SmartSuite formats, but not Microsoft's Office Open XML format, which is used by Microsoft Office 2007. It can also export PDF files. If you are looking for a free alternative to Microsoft office that supports open standards it could be worth a look.
