TOKYO (MacHouse) – IBM has released a free software suite that is based on the Open Document Format (ODF) standard. Lotus Symphony consists of Lotus Symphony Documents (word processor), Lotus Symphony Presentations (presentation) and Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets (spreadsheet). According to IBM, Lotus Symphony supports macro for a batch process. Currently, Lotus Symphony is only available for Windows (Windows XP and Windows Vista) and Linux (SLED 10, RHEL 5 and Redhat5). And there is so far only the English version available.

Lotus 1-2-3 was a dominant spreadsheet program throughout the 1980s. It was a spreadsheet program generally running under DOS. When Microsoft introduced Microsoft Excel 5.0 with strong support of Visual Basics for batch process in mid-1990s, Lotus’ share quickly diminished. Lotus Software was once an independent company but was eventually bought by IBM. Lotus also introduced the Mac version of Lotus 1-2-3 around 1993 to mid-1990s. But it was never updated beyond version 1.






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