Over the years you have probably gotten use to having to pay high prices for software such as office productivity tools.  I use to use an application called Microsoft Office which allowed me to do my word processing, spreadsheets and also presentations.  Recently, I installed IBM Lotus Symphony which is a free alternative.

Even though I work for IBM, I was somewhat hesitant to use Lotus Symphony.  Things are a little bit different to what I have been use to and I didn’t really want to spend too much time learning new things.  However, a friend of mine was using Symphony and he encouraged me to give it a go.  So I did.  After about 1 week of using it, I removed Microsoft Office 2010 from my computer.

It has been interesting talking to some other friends of mine lately.  A few of them have been telling me that Microsoft Office 2010 has crashed on their Windows 7 computer.  I am not able to confirm that the following statement is true, a few of them have told me that there are known issues with Microsoft Office 2010 and Windows 7.  We all have access to Google, if you want to confirm that, then just do a quick search.

Click here to download your free copy

Typically, one of the first questions that people ask about IBM Lotus Symphony is, will it work with Microsoft Office files.  The answer is “yes”.  Not only that, but it will also save files as Microsoft Office files.  This is a reasonable question to ask as most businesses trade with people who use a variety of applications.  However, Symphony also has a build in PDF writer so you don’t even have to buy a PDF writer.

Lotus Symphony runs on Windows, Apple Mac and Linux.  This is idea if your business has user on different operating systems (sorry, but for most people this is probably just a bit of geek talk).