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IBM gives workers ten days to switch from Microsoft Office to Lotus Symphony - OR ELSE!
There's word today today that IBM has finally ordered its staff to abandon Microsoft Office immediately and switch to their own Lotus Symphony suite.Symphony has been around since 2008, and apparently IBM is now confident enough in its office work kung fu that it's going to take over full time duties.
The move makes perfect sense. It's hard to imagine any company using someone else's software to do the chores that their own app is designed to tackle. Why ask your customers do something you can't even ask your own staff to do?
Symphony, of course, is based on OpenOffice.org and recently gained support for Office 2007. The announcement means 360,000 IBM employees now have 10 days to bid MSO a fond farewell before kissing it goodbye forever.
Sure, it's kind of a big hit for Microsft -- but how long did people really expect IBM not to use their own product?
We speculate that users who refuse to switch will have this image blown up and plastered all over their cubicle, where it will remain until they submit.
[via Linux Magazine]
Comments
13
Subscribe to commentsdXm99Sep 16th 2009 6:42PM
If it is anything like Lotus Notes... they will be soooryyyy. :S
iGateSep 16th 2009 7:12PM
can u explain the pic?
Hi Geektech713Sep 16th 2009 11:01PM
Ya l love IBM Lotus Symphony ..here is the link
http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.nsf/home
GeorgeSep 16th 2009 11:18PM
dXm99...Lotus Notes is great product. I'll bet you've never used it for anything other than email...if that.
Lotus Symphony, on the other hand, is just a prettier version of OpenOffice, which is an awful office suite. dXm99, you are right about them being sooooryyyy, Symphony is only marginally better than Oo. It will be painful for them at first.
I give IBM credit, though. They should eat their own dogfood.
dXm99Sep 17th 2009 2:58AM
I do use Notes only for mail versions from 6.5 till 8.5. I did try to use it also as organizer but UI is a inconsistent mess. It also eats a lot of memory. Now i try to avoid IBM products whenever I can because of bad taste Notes left.
GeorgeSep 17th 2009 8:09AM
Lotus Notes is a great development platform. I've been developing for Notes for 15 years now. Agreed, though, the UI is not that great, but browser based Notes apps can look great.
James RaineySep 16th 2009 11:27PM
I work for IBM.. this is a false story.
I have used Symphony 1.3 since March... it's sweet. Bye Bye Microsoft Office.
And... as far as Notes goes.. 8.x is pretty sweet too.
Saint SeminoleSep 17th 2009 9:21AM
In the Lotus .pdf file (on their website) that explains its features, they use a lot of orange-on-yellow, and yellow-on-white fonts that are *really* hard to read.
Based on that alone, I probably wouldn't try the software -- if you design your explanation file that badly, how good could your software be?
RocketboySep 17th 2009 10:53AM
It's called eating your own dogfood. IBM was foolish to let people use MSOffice in the first place.
Money MikeSep 17th 2009 12:38PM
I'm sure it won't matter to most employees, but I would be pissed if lost the functionality of macros and vba scripting. It's not technically part of my job function, but I'd be screwed without it.
glaciaSep 18th 2009 1:57PM
Macros.... Wow I forgot about that. I have so many macros that I've written that my work would screech to a halt if I had to give up Excel. I would have to reinvent years of work if it were even possible to do in Symphony.
glaciaSep 18th 2009 1:12PM
I would quit, seriously. As an engineer I have so much invested in Excel I wouldn't work anywhere that said I couldn't use it. Maybe it's meaningless for people who only write an occasional document or send emails to switch to another product but I can't conceive of not using Excel for calculations.
remmoltSep 29th 2009 3:33AM
i know too much about the software-business... when Bill Gates bought Word we were forced to 'forget' Wordperfect, which we were running on large OpenVMS Clusters as well as PC Networks. If forced into a strategic multi-sourcing situation, it all comes down to cost of ownership..