Replace Pricey Microsoft Office with Free Lotus Symphony 1.0

Lotus Symphony is a free office suite for Windows and Linux. It rivals Microsoft Office, offering business-caliber word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. And it's no longer in beta: IBM just announced Symphony's official 1.0 release.

Though built on an OpenOffice core, Symphony bears little resemblance to that open-source office suite favorite. It employs a simple, attractive, unified interface, one that lets you mix and match documents under a single tabbed umbrella.

I've been using Symphony on and off for the past few months, and was finally able to download the 1.0 version over the weekend (IBM's servers have been slammed since Friday). Though it does still crash occasionally and lacks a few amenities (like a thesaurus), for the most part I find it an excellent alternative to Microsoft Office. I also prefer it to OpenOffice, but that's largely because of the slicker interface.

Before you spend a small fortune buying yet another Office license, do yourself a favor and try Symphony. You may find it more than meets your word-processing, spreadsheet, and presentation needs.