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IBM to offer office software free in challenge to Microsoft's line | |
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| Time: 10:15 EST/15:15 GMT | News Source: News.com | Posted By: Jonathan Tigner | ||
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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. The company is announcing 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. 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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| #1 By 7754 (206.169.247.2) at 9/18/2007 10:23:52 AM |
| Interesting... but I wonder if perhaps they would have been better off NOT slapping the Lotus name on it. |
| #2 By 37 (76.210.78.134) at 9/18/2007 10:35:49 AM |
| I assume there will be a lawsuit. We know that if MS gave away office, the DOJ would be on their butt. |
| #3 By 65179 (221.128.181.98) at 9/18/2007 11:06:28 AM |
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So, in this era, the whole industry is trying to take down Microsoft's top products...and yet they're withstanding and marketshare is solid. Google, Sun/Open Office, Apple and IBM after Office and all the Linux distros (Ubuntu, SuSE, Fedora, Mandriva, PCLinuxOS, Debian) and OS X after Windows Vista. And yet XP is not slipping.
For Office at least, I'd like to see an "Express" free edition from MS, which isn't like MS Works and built entirely using WPF. And OpenOffice is becoming the Linux of office suites, it seems. This post was edited by consumer4beta on Tuesday, September 18, 2007 at 12:38. |
| #4 By 37047 (216.191.227.68) at 9/18/2007 11:29:16 AM |
| Even though OpenOffice.org is a awkward name for an office suite, I don't think branding a version of it with the Lotus moniker is an improvement. It does need a better name, though. |
| #5 By 8556 (12.207.97.148) at 9/18/2007 12:19:07 PM |
| This is an odd thing to do and won't hurt MS at all. How many versions of Star Office are needed? Will the Lotus branded office suite support all the old Lotus formats? Will it seamlessly open and save in MS Access's format, which is the feature that is really needed to make Star/Open/Lotus Office viable? I doubt that the "Lotus" version will be much different than Star/OpenOffice. Splintering Star Office further than OpenOffice may have the unintended result of driving people to MS Office, and not from it, due to confusion. |
| #6 By 28801 (65.90.202.10) at 9/18/2007 12:27:14 PM |
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I can already get Lotus SmartSuite or Corel Office for a few bucks. I don't want it! Free isn't going to make a difference.
Isn't it interesting to see that IBM is trying to get into this market after they vehemently opposed openXML? I don’t want to get into a debate over the strengths and flaws of openXML (leave that to Parker and Latch), but anyone who thinks that IBM didn’t have this as their end game when they lobbied against openXML is kidding themselves This post was edited by rxcall on Tuesday, September 18, 2007 at 12:28. |
| #7 By 37 (76.210.78.134) at 9/18/2007 12:31:40 PM |
| I toyed around with the the older Word Perfect Office 11, and I must say, it isn't a bad alternative to Office, and offered some better author/writing functions than MS Word. |
| #8 By 7754 (206.169.247.2) at 9/18/2007 2:19:02 PM |
| WordPerfect has been a very strong product for quite awhile, and is arguably better than Word in some areas. The biggest problem with it--or any other competitor, for that matter--is compatibility with Word. If you work on documents with clients, 99% is just not good enough--regardless of how good the conversion is, if it's not 100%, it will still require essentially an extra QA process on every document, every page. |
| #9 By 11888 (64.231.3.191) at 9/18/2007 3:15:43 PM |
| You can look at the whales, but don't shoot them. |
| #10 By 1896 (68.153.171.248) at 9/18/2007 5:44:51 PM |
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#2: Do you remember Outlook 98? MS gave it away, litterally, and nobody complained. Obviously that move killed Ecco Pro, an excellent PIM for the time. This post was edited by Fritzly on Tuesday, September 18, 2007 at 18:20. |
| #11 By 1896 (68.153.171.248) at 9/18/2007 5:50:36 PM |
| The biggest shortcoming for all these Office alternatives is a replacement for Outlook; in spite of its many shortcomings, the lack of a Backup feature for example, as far as I know there is nothing better on the market. |
| #12 By 9589 (75.183.126.162) at 9/18/2007 11:56:57 PM |
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Must be a slow news day . . .
More than a decade ago, we used to buy IBM workstations and laptops - remember when IBM was still in the PC business? Anyway . . . every unit included a free copy of their "Smart" Suite, Office wannabe. That was just one of many items that was put back in the back when the unit was removed and taken out to the trash. They couldn't even give it away back then. Predictably, they'll do as good with this as they did with their decade plus loser of a PC business. IBM - still trying to stay revelevant . . . |
| #13 By 37 (76.210.78.134) at 9/19/2007 5:56:15 AM |
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#11, do you remember why they gave it away? Due to overwhelming demand to fix the broken Outlook 97. The public demanded a fix or new replacement product, and at no charge. This post was edited by AWBrian on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 at 05:56. |
| #14 By 28801 (65.90.202.10) at 9/19/2007 7:26:21 AM |
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With Star Office from Google for free, Open Office for free, and a myriad of web 2.0 offerings, why would anyone choose IBM software?
Anyone who uses Notes knows it’s an abortion! I know Microsoft Office! I use Microsoft Office! Symphony... you are no Microsoft Office! |
| #15 By 1896 (68.153.171.248) at 9/19/2007 8:52:42 AM |
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#14: Good try. :-)
Seriously speaking, did MS gave away Windows 2000 or XP because people had problem with ME? Obviously not. They gave away Outlook 98 in order to increase market penetration with a completely new, for MS, application. In fact OK 98 was available for everybody not just and only users of OK 97. Btw do not get me wrong I love Outlook although even today the program have some deficiencies like the absence of a decent backup. This post was edited by Fritzly on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 at 08:58. |
| #16 By 8556 (12.207.97.148) at 9/19/2007 8:59:56 AM |
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#15: I've been using MS's Personal Folders Backup tool for Outlook for years. You can back up to any folder or drive availble. Here is a link to the program information, with a download link on the same page:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA010875321033.aspx |
| #17 By 37 (76.210.78.134) at 9/19/2007 11:11:23 AM |
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Sorry, but it was free to fix problems with Outlook 97, and free for a "select time" for non Outlook 97 users. Outlook 97 users could continue to get it free after the time period. It was free from April to June of 98 for NON Outlook 97 users.
http://aroundcny.com/technofile/texts/tec041298.html |
| #18 By 23275 (24.179.4.158) at 9/19/2007 1:14:31 PM |
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#17, Yes OL98 was technically only free for a limited time; however, there were enough "free" CDROM's containing it w/o any on-line activation required, distributed via various means [magazines, books, stack-outs at CompUSA, etc...] that one could quite literally have used them to shingle a good sized roof. So practically speaking, it was always free.
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| #19 By 37 (76.210.78.134) at 9/19/2007 2:01:11 PM |
| And it was free on Wednesdays, after 9pm, before 10:14pm, at Office Depots that were on the odd side of the street, only in cities that started with the letter B, that had a population greater than 60,000, but less than 150,000, unless there was a lunar eclipse scheduled for the following day. |
| #20 By 1896 (68.153.171.248) at 9/19/2007 2:52:19 PM |
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#16 Thanks for the link, I will check it. Besides what I was referring to was that Outlook, even the 2007 Edition, does not have an option marked "Backup"; the closest you get is "Export".
The other PIM software I was referring to "Ecco Pro" had a very well structured backup plan with two alternate location by default etc. etc. 17: does not "free for a "select time" for non Outlook 97 users" means "give away"? |
| #21 By 37 (66.191.120.168) at 9/19/2007 3:52:04 PM |
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How does giving away Outlook 98 free for 3 months equate to Outlook being free? What about the rest of the Outlook 98 cycle when people had to pay for it? And what about all the people that paid for Outlook 97, 2000, 2002, 2003 and now 2007?
Back on the point, IBM Office won't make any dents in MS Office. |
| #22 By 1896 (68.153.171.248) at 9/19/2007 4:39:33 PM |
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#21: Please re-read carefully what I stated, post #10. I never said that Outlook has always been available for free; I said that MS gave OK98 away for free and indeed they did it, simple as this.
As for IBM Office I agree that, for now, it is not a threat to MS Office, nor they neither any other competitors have a valide alternative to Outlook. Said that I would not underscore what is going on though; I was around and heard people comments about how Windows was a useless app running on top of DOS etc. etc.; I remember giving a try to Excel and going back right away to Quattro Pro because it was so much better... at the time. Also I am sure that a lot of people here remember when Lotus was the reigning software and MS was trying to catch-up with it. Do I hope that MS will fail? Not at all and for several reasons, including the fact I am a MS shareholder, but some of the moves they made lately rise some concerns. This post was edited by Fritzly on Wednesday, September 19, 2007 at 16:45. |
| #23 By 37 (66.191.120.168) at 9/19/2007 5:03:02 PM |
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I don't want any company to fail. There are so many people that are employed at these companies...they have families to support and more.
And I have no need to re-read your post. You stated OL 98 was free, which is fine. I merely put in the facts on what was "free" about it, and why it was free. |
| #24 By 254367 (125.164.237.42) at 12/3/2009 1:08:56 AM |
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