Microsoft Office again with Lotus Symphony

The computing giant, which has been challenging Microsoft's desktop dominance for years, said that Lotus Symphony is a standards-based alternative to Microsoft's proprietary Office.

Separately, on Monday afternoon, Yahoo said that it paid $350 million to acquire Zimbra, a start-up that developed a Web-based e-mail and collaboration package comparable with Microsoft office 2007  and Outlook.

Meanwhile, Google on Monday introduced Google Presentations, an online version of Microsoft's PowerPoint presentation application that complements Google's Web-hosted document editor and spreadsheet.

The flurry of investment in productivity software points to technology and business changes in the IT industry that are making Microsoft's cash cow vulnerable to alternatives, particularly among small businesses and consumers.

But don't expect Microsoft coffers to start draining tomorrow. Analysts expect Microsoft to retain the great majority of its Office customers as it adjusts its product development to the Web and open source, even as competitors try to siphon off its Office revenue.

"I think there's some blood in the water between Microsoft not getting its Open XML (Office document formats) fast-track standards approval and the European Commission ruling," said Michael Silver, an analyst at Gartner, referring to two recent Microsoft setbacks.

Microsoft failed to get its Office Open XML formats certified as ISO standards through its accelerated process earlier this month. On Monday, the European Commission ruled in favor of regulators in an antitrust case that could change how Microsoft does business in Europe.
Microsoft has shown some signs of reacting to the full-court press it's seeing from competitors.

Last week, it made a version of its Office suite available to students for $60. It is also developing Office Live, a set of online services that complements Office and is aimed at small businesses.

A Microsoft spokesman on Tuesday said that Office meets its customers' needs because the company continues to invest in it.

"Competition is good for the industry and good for customers. That said, Microsoft Office 2010 Professional continues to be the overwhelming choice for a broad range of organizations and individuals," said Jacob Jaffe, director of Office at Microsoft. "Microsoft Office has changed as people's work has changed, and the alternatives for the most part have aimed to meet the needs of the past."

IBM on Tuesday offered up beta versions of the Lotus Symphony applications--a document editor, spreadsheet and presentation program--to end users and business customers for free download.

The applications run on Windows and Linux, and a Mac version is planned.
IBM executives said that the company's backing of OpenOffice-based software and the open-source project is similar to its decision in the 1990s to push Linux into businesses.