Posts Tagged 'symphony'

Surviving the rough economy with Lotus Software

Published February 24, 2009 Uncategorized Closed
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Intranet Journal published this super article, on how Lotus Software can help you and your company reduce expenses and navigate through the rough economy. My friend Ed Brill posted about this earlier this week. John Roling outlines nine actions you can take, that will help you weather this economical crisis, including: moving to Lotus Symphony, upgrading to Lotus Domino 8.5, deploying Lotus Sametime for IM and web-meetings and others:

As we’re all painfully aware, the current economic climate is far from wonderful. Businesses are looking for ways to cut corners and reduce costs whenever possible, and many times that leads to belt-tightening in your IT departments. I want to share with you some ways that products from Lotus can help you reduce costs in some obvious, and not-so-obvious ways.

Links:
Intranet Journal – Surviving the rough economy with Lotus Software
Ed Brill
Dvir Reznik – Now’s the time to deploy IM

Notes/Domino 8.5 announced at Macworld Expo

Published January 7, 2009 Uncategorized Closed
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Some great coverage of IBM presence at Macworld Expo, courtesy of Ed Brill.
First, IBM announced the availability of Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5, which has been highly anticipated, including some great new features – both client and server side, and Mac support. You can also review the deck of ‘Introducing Lotus Notes/Domino 8.5‘ over at slideshare.
Head over to Ed’s post for more details on this important announcement.

Secondly, IBM also announced release 1.2.1 of Lotus Symphony, the open-office based productivity suite, available for free download at symphony.lotus.com.

Thirdly, great press coverage from the event.

Links:
Ed Brill
Alan Lepofsky
Chris Reckling
IBM announcement
IBM press room

Build your Foundations with IBM

Published June 9, 2008 Uncategorized 1 Comment
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

IBM announced last week 2 major releases:
The first is Lotus Symphony 1.0 – IBM’s Office replacement suite, built on OpenOffice, over Eclipse, is out of beta and into the real Software life cycle. Mazal Tov !
The second is the GA (general availability) of Lotus Foundations Start, announced in Lotusphere 08, which serves as IBM’s first Collaboration Server for small and medium businesses (SMB market).

Both announcements will have tremendous impact on our Israeli market, and would improve IBM’s position in the local SMB market, providing an alternative for 5-500 employees companies looking for a complete collaboration solution.

So, what’s Lotus Foundations Start is all about?
Running a small business is a big business, and you want to keep it simple. So, Lotus Foundations Start is basically a combination of HW and SW from IBM, with Services from our Business Partners, wrapped in one package. For more details head over to ibm.com/lotus/foundations.

One of top three questions I answer when visiting customers, especially in the SMB market, is ‘isn’t IBM suited for Enterprise-size only?’ And that’s a valid question, since IBM employs 380,000 people, and our brand is ‘Big Blue’… Still, our software is infrastructure, and as such, suits any business, from a 5 people family business to a mature start-up of 400. IBM Express Advantage (custom-made solutions for SMB) includes all the features and capabilities, in smaller packages, and competitive prices, that fit any budget and any IT system.

You can learn more about IBM solutions (Hardware and Software) for small and medium businesses (SMB) at our local website. If you have any questions or concerns, leave a comment below.

Lotus Symphony does Hebrew as well

Published September 27, 2007 Uncategorized 4 Comments
Tags: , , , ,

Since the announcement of Lotus Symphony in Lotus Collaboration Summit at NYC, I’ve been doing some research into the Hebrew support of the product. My main concern was whether there’s an inherit bi-directional support for complex text languages (such as Hebrew and Arabic), which basically allows for both Hebrew and English to appear in the same sentence/paragraph, while maintaining the original meaning. Bidi support is what gives us (in Israel) the ability to write in English and Hebrew, with the text right aligned, at the code level, not visual (align to right/center/left) icons. Every software product that is sold in Israel must support this requirement, otherwise it’s not suitable for Hebrew (or Arabic for that matter). Ed Brill even did a little research back in March this year, prior attending a Lotusphere Comes To You event in Israel.
BTW – Announced only last week, Lotus Symphony already reached its 100,000 downloads mark. Very impressive.

Hebrew enabled, thanks to China…
Now back to the Hebrew issue. Although Lotus Symphony is based on the Productivity Tools which are embedded in Lotus Notes 8 (which in turn are based on OpenOffice.org), my first impression from the Hebrew support was not good.
I opened all the tool bars, trying to find those 2 little icons, that determine the direction of a paragraph (see first screen shot) – couldn’t find any. I consulted with some colleagues, from the product management as well as from product development, and finally, the answer came from China (Jian Fang – thanks again!). A small checkbox needed to be checked in Lotus Symphony Preferences in order to enable the RTL icons (second screen shot). And there’s even the more advanced option to change the layout of Lotus Symphony – from right to left (third screen shot below).

Available in right aligned UI as well
Below you can see Lotus Symphony’s user interface aligned to the right (interface still in English, but mirrored to the right).

And here are some sample screenshots of Lotus Symphony Documents, Spreadsheet and Presentation (respectively), with files created in Office applications.
Lotus Symphony Documents:

Lotus Symphony Spreadsheet:

Lotus Symphony Presentation:
More Lotus Symphony pictures and screen shots are available at my Flickr account.

To finish this post – a very cool animated TV ad, that I got from a friend at work. The animation looks so real, but the big story is the concept – superb !
Fight for Kisses:

Symphony to my ears

Published September 18, 2007 Uncategorized Closed
Tags: , , , , , ,

IBM announced today (Tue) a new desktop productivity software, Lotus Symphony, free of charge.
The new software, announced at Collaboration Summit in NYC this morning, includes a word processor, a spreadsheet and a presentation tool, and is available for download for all users: business, professional, academic and customers.

Lotus Symphony runs of both Windows and Linux machines, and support Open Document Format (ODF), Microsoft Office and exporting to Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF).
The software is build on Eclipse and Lotus Expeditor, and can also handle Lotus SmartSuite files.
Lotus Symphony is a stand-alone version of the Productivity Tools available in Lotus Notes 8 client, and provides the end-user with the flexibility to work on a productivity software of his/her choice, saving as ODF and exporting to PDF.

More coverage is available here:
IBM takes on Microsoft again, with Lotus Symphony (C/Net)
IBM giving aways social networking (ZDnet)
IBM releases IBM Lotus Symphony free software suite (CNN Money)
IBM Symphony pushes Microsoft buttons (InternetNews)
IBM launches free, online Office applications (PC Magazine)
IBM sets an alternative for Microsoft Office (TheMarker IT – Hebrew)
IBM Lotus Symphony – supports multilingual languages, including Hebrew (DailyMaily – Hebrew)

Lotus Symphony: ibm.com/lotus/symphony



Mobile & Media Consultant. I help startup companies launch products to the consumer market. Reach out: dvir.reznik [at] gmail.com
Website
About

Archives

Disclaimer

This is my personal blog. The postings here do not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my past employers or of my clients. It is solely my opinion.