Lotus Symphony can be best described as a suite of office tools. It is designed along the same lines as the Microsoft Office Suite and the Google Docs suite. Most people are conversant with the Microsoft Office suite. The Google Docs suite, on the other hand, is one that you can access by entering the right credentials on the page you normally use to log into Gmail, at www.gmail.com.
Worth mentioning at this early stage is the fact that the Lotus Symphony in question here is radically different from the Lotus Symphony we had in the early days of personal computers (the 80s). The two suites share names, but they are totally different: seeing that, among other things, the Lotus Symphony of the 80s was pretty much a DOS-based platform, whereas the modern Lotus Symphony, the one we are looking at here, is a GUI-based platform. The former was operated using command lines. The latter is operated in a straightforward manner (with clickable icons and all), just like any other modern software suite.
The three major tools in Lotus Symphony
It emerges that the Lotus Symphony suite has three key tools, namely:
1. A word processing application: this works along the same lines as Microsoft Word. The difference is, of course, in the fact that the word processing application which is part of Lotus Symphony is available free of charge, it being an open source application. This makes it different from Microsoft Word, for which you have to pay something, if you are to use it legally. By default, it yields documents in .ODF (Open Document Format), though users can still opt for other formats (at the risk of losing some functionality).
2. A spreadsheet application: this works along the same lines as Microsoft Excel. It is a full-featured spreadsheet application. The difference between it and Excel is, again, in the fact that the spreadsheet application which is part of Lotus Symphony is available free of charge. On the other hand, Excel is a proprietary application, for which users have to pay what can be termed as ‘hefty prices.’
3. A presentation editing application: this works along the same lines as Microsoft PowerPoint. It is a full featured presentation editing application. But unlike PowerPoint, this particular presentation editing application is available free of charge.
The documents, spreadsheets and presentations prepared using the tools in the Lotus Symphony suite can be saved locally on the computers where they are prepared (for future reference and use). They can also be shared using, among others, email tools such as Gmail (available at www.gmail.com) and Outlook. Of course, sharing such documents becomes harder, compared to sharing documents prepared on the Google Docs suite; which are actually prepared online — and which can as such be shared in real-time.
The pros and cons of Lotus Symphony
Starting with the upside, it is worth mentioning that Lotus Symphony is an open source office tools suite. Thus, the tools available in it are available free of charge. Indeed, the whole suite is distributed as ‘freeware.’ Furthermore, the code used to create it is available for modification by the people who make use of it. This enhances its programmability.
On the downside, it is worth mentioning that support for Lotus Symphony is relatively poor (thanks to the fact that not so many people use it). Lotus Symphony was introduced at around the same time as Google Docs, which people can access using the usernames and passwords they normally use to log into Gmail, at www.gmail.com. Over the years though, Google Docs has attracted many more users than Lotus Symphony. Perhaps that is attributable to the fact that Google Docs are run online, with people simply logging into them using the credentials they typically use when logging into Gmail, at www.gmail.com. Whatever the case, the fact that relatively few people use Lotus Symphony means that support for this suite is relatively poor (though most users find the available community support adequate).
Still on the downside, it is worth mentioning that Lotus Symphony has been discontinued, in favor of the upcoming Apache OpenOffice IBM Editor. This means that people using Lotus Symphony have to switch to the upcoming Apache OpenOffice IBM Editor at some point.