View this article at: http://www.macnn.com/articles/08/11/07/lotus.symphony.12.beta/

Friday, Nov 07, 2008 5:35pm

First Look: Lotus Symphony ...

For the longest time, the only real office suite for the Mac was Microsoft Office. While not a bad office suite, many people dislike the high retail price (although the home edition is far lower at $149 compared to $399 for the retail version). In addition, other Mac users simply object to using any product created by Microsoft. Apple’s iWork is a less expensive option at $79 while the latest OpenOffice 3.0 is completely free. For yet another choice, take a look at IBM’s Lotus Symphony 1.2 beta for the Mac.

Based on OpenOffice 3.0, IBM’s free office suite also runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. While the Mac OS X version is currently in beta testing, IBM plans to release the final version in early 2009. Despite sharing the same code base as OpenOffice 3.0, this office suite offers slightly different features.

One main difference is the features available. OpenOffice 3.0 offers a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation program, database, and drawing program. IBM‘s office suite only focuses on a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation program. A second major difference is the way both office suites handle windows.

In OpenOffice 3.0, each new document appears in a separate window. The problem with this approach is that windows can appear scattered all over the screen and it’s easy to get them mixed up with windows of other programs.

To keep everything organized, IBM’s suite displays a single window. When you open additional files such as a word processing document or spreadsheet, each file appears in the same window with a separate tab. Such a tabbed interface, similar to those found in most browsers, makes it easy to keep everything neatly organized while allowing you to switch between your different files.