IBM Lotus Symphony

Currently the office suite software category is dominated by the one developed by Microsoft as it is the most used worldwide, yet there are other solutions that fight for the same leading position as well. IBM Lotus Symphony is one of the players with a fair share of dedicated users, even if it does not really challenge Microsoft Office.

In essence, IBM Lotus Symphony provides almost the same functions as the other suites yet there are differences that reside in design, as well as in some of the features bundled in each available component.

As expected, installation takes some time but only because we are dealing with an office suite and there are a lot of files to be copied on the computer. Not to mention that you will have to spend some time picking the tools you need, something that's become almost a common thing when talking about this kind of complex software.

IBM Lotus Symphony includes three different utilities, namely “Documents,” “Spreadsheets” and “Presentations,” each serving its very own purpose. As expected, you will find functions common to many similar programs such as a spell checker, calculator, brushes, formulas, transition effects, and many others tools.

A nice feature is the integrated web browser that can open webpages in the main window, without you having to use another piece of software. In addition to that, another useful aspect is that you can extend the capabilities of IBM Lotus Symphony with the help of dedicated plug-ins.

The only real issue that we found during our test was the fact that sometimes IBM Lotus Symphony does not run that smoothly and it is quite demanding in terms of the system resources it uses.

IBM Lotus Symphony offers a pretty good alternative to other office suites and thanks to its solid feature pack it can accommodate the needs of a great number of users.