IBM: Forget Office, Join the Symphony Family

IBM last week announced upgrades to and a roadmap for its 15-month-old Lotus Symphony suite of productivity tools, emphasizing it indeed offers an alternative to Microsoft Office.

The move comes after Microsoft recently said that a court order to remove Office from store shelves next month could leave consumers and businesses "stranded without an alternative set of software."

Microsoft is battling a patent infringement case brought by Toronto-based i4i over XML file formats. The 2007 case resulted in a $290 million judgment against Microsoft and an injunction that bars it from selling Word 2003 and Word 2007 after Oct. 10 unless the offending technology is removed.

"What we are trying to do with Symphony is establish that there is an option in the market and companies don't have to spend the money they spend for productivity suites," says Ed Brill, director of product management for Lotus Software.

Read full story here.