Lotus Symphony

I was not that impressed with the Lotus Symphony compared to OpenOffice.org.  I don’t really see any advantage to having Lotus Symphony.  I was a little upset that it basically took over all the files that we previously opened by OpenOffice.  I was not asked if I wanted this to happen, it just did it by itself.  The interface for Lotus Symphony makes your documents smaller on the screen by default.  The tools bars are also in different positions on the screen, which caused a little confusion at first.

All in all, I know it comes down to personal preference as to which one of these you will use.  I grew up on the MS office layout and OpenOffice makes the adjustment easy.  I will continue to use OpenOffice for the time being.

OpenOffice.org and IBM Lotus Symphony

I have been using OpenOffice.org for some time now.  They recently updated to version 2.4 which so far I have not noticed any obvious differences.  I am pretty much an OpenOffice fan-boy.  I tell everyone who needs an office suite about this product.  Its free to download and easy to install.  Today I decided that I would try out IBM’s Lotus Symphony.  Well, I will tell you about the experience so far as I have not installed the product yet.  The website for Lotus Symphony was a little slow for me.  There were several long pauses between clicks to navigate the site.  IBM also wants your name and e-mail address for some reason.  The other problem is that one of the check boxes needs to checked, because it appears that they will use your info for something.  The download has finish and at this point I am waiting for a quiet time to try it out.