IBM has just announced a new solution designed to help business customers reduce their costs by turning to the company's latest version of Lotus Symphony, a productivity suite designed as an alternative to Microsoft's Office. According to IBM, customers could save up to hundreds of dollars on each of their Microsoft Office licenses with the help of the new Lotus Symphony version 1.3, which can be easily downloaded, free of charge from one of the company's web pages. The Lotus Symphony will provide users with support for their current Microsoft Office 2007 documents, which can be accessed through IBM's ODF-based solution.

 

“IBM is delivering on its commitment to free businesses and consumers from having to pay licensing fees over and over just to access their own personal or company information,” said Kevin Cavanaugh, VP of Lotus Software. “Now, it will be much harder to justify paying Office licensing fees when you can preserve and access your Office documents for free using Lotus Symphony”

 

With the release of the new Lotus Symphony productivity suite, IBM is trying to provide its clients with an alternative to Microsoft's highly successful Office suite. According to the Armonk, New York-based company, this new solution could translate into millions of dollars in savings at many large enterprises looking for a way to reduce costs during an ongoing low market economy.

 

The latest version also adds up a couple of new features, including the possibility for users to drag-and-drop plug-ins, consequently extending the use of Symphony to other business applications. The suite also adds support for Microsoft's Office 2007 file formats and provides animation for presentations that can interoperate with Microsoft's PowerPoint presentations.

 

IBM's new Symphony Lotus productivity suite is already available for download via this web page, providing users with a free-of-charge alternative to Microsoft's Windows Office.