IBM Lotus Symphony 1.2 Beta Supports Mac OS X

“The wait is over... Lotus Symphony 1.2 delivers beta support for Mac OS X 10.5 (Intel),” IBM has announced. So as to be able to release an enhanced, “Generally Available” Mac version in Q1 09, IBM encourages everyone who owns an Intel Mac to try it out and provide feedback.

IBM's Lotus Symphony is a richly-featured set of productivity tools that enables users to create documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Lotus Notes users can create, edit, and share their work with the integrated version of Lotus Symphony, which is built into the Lotus Notes client user interface.

“So, what do you get when you combine the standard-bearer for GUI elegance of the Mac OS X with the clean, award winning interface of Lotus Symphony? An unbeatable combination of innovation and simplicity for office productivity applications, designed with users in mind,” says IBM. “The development team has worked hard to ensure that Lotus Symphony not only works on Mac OS X, but is also optimized to take advantage of the elegance of the Aqua GUI theme, proving a sense of innovation and simplicity Mac that users have come to expect.”

Lotus Symphony 1.2 also delivers tons of enhancements and changes, like improved .ods and .xls files loading performance; improved .ods files saving performance; enhanced performance optimization options usability by adding Symphony system tray icon; enhanced exported PDF accessibility by adding structural tags and attributes for document elements; enhanced BIDI support in Spreadsheet; added user interface language support in regional settings preferences page; enabled creation of hyperlinks to local documents in all three editors; associated numbering and bullet style to paragraph properties in Documents; enhanced new page creation usability in Presentations, as well as significant enhancements on DataPilot in Spreadsheets.

Online Help Enhancements include better help content for Presentations and a new Symphony information center  available here. Even the website has undergone changes, with a newly-added Business Partner page and a re-designed Buzz section, Plug-ins section, and Gallery Landing page.

“Right now, for Beta, Lotus Symphony on Mac OS X is available in English only,” IBM declares. The company assures those who become hooked on Lotus Symphony that support for all languages will be available “when we move Lotus Symphony support for Mac OS X out of Beta.”

Lastly, IBM urges users to provide them with feedback, as it is “vital to ensuring that we continue to focus on the right things and ensure that Lotus Symphony delivers the experience you need.”

Download IBM Lotus Symphony 1.2 Beta (Free)