Symphony 3.0 beta now available

February 4 2010

As promised at Lotusphere, the beta of Lotus Symphony 3.0 is now available on symphony.lotus.com...

Key new features in Symphony 3.0:

  • VB Macros support
  • ODF 1.2 support for improved file interoperability
  • embedded audio/video allows users to add media directly to slides, documents and sheets
  • autotext support to create "chunks" of text that are used frequently and quickly inserted
  • digital signatures
  • redline support  --- shows edits made to document
  • usability enhancements

I know some are asking, "What happened to Symphony 2.0?"  The answer is, since this new release is aligned with the OpenOffice 3.x codebase, we chose to move the version number up to alignment.  Symphony 3.0 is going to be exciting and further help liberate IT organizations from paying high Microsoft taxes -- get started now by downloading the beta and providing feedback.

Ed Brill Canada eh Category:  Lotus Symphony  Add/View Comments [19]

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  1. 1  Thomas Klein  | 2/4/2010 5:00:24 AM

    Ed, you surly know that Symphony 2.0 was not skipped but is simply outdated ;-)

    My collegue just found a (German) book in his shelf dated 1989 and called 'Symphony für Praktiker' - for Version 2.0.

    Looks like Lotus already had a product called Symphony in those days.

  1. 2  Albert Buendia  | 2/4/2010 5:29:23 AM

    Just downloaded in Spanish. Beautiful. Very good enhancements, usability, interface, and ** digital signatures **.

    Thanks a lot. Beta in Spanish. I can't believe it !

  1. 3  Reinhard Steurer http://www.dachser.com | 2/4/2010 8:15:47 AM

    Great performance improvements!

    When will be the final Symphony 3 available?

    Are there any plans to included this in the Lotus Client release? 8.5.2?

    Or does 8.5.1 works fine with (final) Symphony 3? I belivee it does ;o)

  1. 4  jnk  | 2/4/2010 10:21:24 AM

    and even works great on macOS , amazing stuff

  1. 5  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 2/4/2010 10:31:33 AM

    All questions I can't quite answer yet. Shipping in 2010, sure, and not the end of the year. Will have to comment separately on ability to deploy into 8.5.1 vs. 8.5.2...may depend on timing.

  1. 6  Darren Duke http://blog.darrenduke.net | 2/4/2010 2:22:34 PM

    I'm very happy you aligned the release numbers with OpenOffice, much simpler. And don't feel bad, Exchange started at release 4.0!

    Is this the release that will be separated from the Notes install? So we can upgrade one without the other. Please....

  1. 7  Mike Brown http://www.browniesblog.com | 2/4/2010 6:55:51 PM

    It sure looks the business, but it's still painfully slow to load up for the first time, and then to create the first document.

    It's piggy with resources too. Symphony.exe takes 85 Meg with a single, blank document. Add to that another 56 meg for soffice.bin.

    That compares to winword.exe (for Word 2007) taking only 60 Meg.

  1. 8  cici http://www.lookedhardy.com | 2/5/2010 1:34:39 AM

    top Christian Audigier tanks

    www.lookedhardy.com

  1. 9  Michael  | 2/5/2010 2:43:34 AM

    @Mike : not sure memory footprint comparison (particularily on windows that tend to give completely wrong figures in task manager) and in general performance is a good comparison criteria on a beta release...

    PS : while writing this, my IE is using 150 Mo RAM ;-)

  1. 10  Dick Stagnone http://www.bos.frb.org/ | 2/5/2010 9:38:31 AM

    Ed:

    I am trying to champion some adoption and one of the questions I get is, why Symphony instead of OpenOffice 3.

    Does Lotus have or will you have a short paper on the benefits of Symphony over OpenOffice to simplify the decision making ?

    This seems like a living document which would be revised with each new release of Symphony.

    As an exLoti and member of the Symphony team, Thanks for bringing it back better than ever...

  1. 11  Dick Stagnone http://www.bos.frb.org/ | 2/5/2010 9:48:24 AM

    Re: #1, Version 1 of Lotus Spmphony was released in 1984 I believe. At the time they thought it would overtake 1-2-3 in sales (told 1-2-3 Support staff not to worry about their jobs).

    Re: #3, I would like Symphony install to recognize that I have a compatable version of Lotus Notes installed and ask me if I wish to add Symphony too it ! In my office they will never roll out Symphony as part of the Notes install so I would like it to be easy to add.

    Re: #4, is their an IPad version in the future ? ;-)

  1. 12  Patrick Kwinten http://quintessens.wordpress.com | 2/5/2010 12:57:00 PM

    will it also become available on the Domino server so we use as a service (ex. converting files when uploading) or will this be a separate installation?

  1. 13  Craig Wiseman http://www.Wiseman.La/cpw | 2/5/2010 3:25:56 PM

    The correct answer for Symphony 2.0 is that it shipped in the Windows 6.0 timeframe.

    @12 THAT is a great idea....

  1. 14  Tor  | 2/6/2010 9:38:10 AM

    very nice - some great improvements. I hope there's another release planned soon. The bullet and indentation functionality is still weak within presentations (via the ruler).

    I hope IBM is planning on making this the iphone of presentation software :)

  1. 15  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 2/7/2010 4:02:08 PM

    Ed can't say it, but I can. At Lotusphere, the Symphony team said:

    1) The Symphony 3 beta will be stand-alone because they can't put beta software on top of shipping code

    2) There would be an install for Symphony 3 once it ships to update a Notes 8.5.1 install, just like Sametime 8.5 Client does today. 8.5.2 is all about timing - but if 8.5.2 ships first, then the install would do the same

    @12 Patrick, as I answered you on my blog, there is no server version coming at this time. You don't need Symphony installed on the server when you can create and edit ODF in memory.

  1. 16  Kerr  | 2/8/2010 4:25:32 AM

    @12, I've seen Mark Myers (aka @stickfight) show a really nice demo of using Open Office on the server to convert ODF files into HTML. Not sure what else you could do with it, but for that kind of server based task Open Office should be fine.

  1. 17  Erik Brooks  | 2/9/2010 7:03:11 AM

    @12 - I've longed for that for a long time. An IBM-created, server-side convert-to-PDF. Mmmmm....

  1. 18  Anil Cherian  | 2/10/2010 10:48:39 PM

    Ed - Do you exclusively use Symphony now for productivity? I have a client with a few Macs and plenty of PCs that is loathe to upgrade their M$ Office licenses - of course I fully support their decision as it would be huge cost. I have been trying to push them to move to something based in OpenOffice. Symphony certainly looks great but it needs a couple of features

    1) Better handling of track changes - esp deletions - a little bit of code to put deletions in the sidebar as opposed to simply striking through the text - would go a long way also the beta seems to be strange in that you cant right click and accept / reject

    2) the ability to write to docx/xlsx would be wonderful

    Ive posted these on the beta forum - but I thought I would list the concerns here in case you can move up in queue :)

  1. 19  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 2/11/2010 8:06:13 AM

    Yes, I exclusively use Symphony. I don't have Office on this machine and haven't missed it.