eXpresso is very excited about adding support for IBM Lotus® Symphony™ as an additional option for editing documents online. Our initial support for Symphony will be to LotusLive users. LotusLive is a business collaboration platform where people can do many different things, including share files. Our mutual goal with IBM is to enable LotusLive users to easily open and edit their stored files with whichever editor she or he prefers.
Here’s a little more information about IBM Lotus® Symphony™:
The following content is from the IBM Software News blog dated WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2009
1. Symphony office productivity software contains a word processor, spreadsheet and presentations program
3. More than 10 million copies of Symphony have been downloaded since September 2007.
4. IBM provides free support for users through an IBM-moderated Web forum.
5. Symphony is built by IBM on open source software – OpenOffice.org and Eclipse
6. Symphony is available on the Mac OS, Linux and Windows.
7. Symphony lets users open, read and import Microsoft Office 2007 files as well as a whole host of other formats
8. Symphony gets rave reviews
CRN named Symphony 2008 Product of the Year for Desktop Applications.
ReadWriteWeb posted this review in June 2009
9. Symphony has advanced functions
Drag -and-drop installation of widgets
Exportation of files to PDF or JPEG
Animations in PowerPoint presentations
Data Pilot (or Pivot) Table improvements
10. The savings over Microsoft Office is considerable. Symphony could save a company with 20,000 employees $8 million in software license fees or potentially more than $4 million in software renewal fees.
To be considered for an early invitation to try this out, please sign up here.
eXpresso is proud to be announcing it’s participation in the IBM Lotus Software Offerings Partner program.
For the past few months, the eXpresso team has been working on a special project to provide document collaboration inside IBM LotusLive™. For the first time publicly, eXpresso will be demoing the initial concept at Lotusphere 2010 in Orlando, Florida on January 17-21st.
With eXpresso, LotusLive users can open files in one click without ever leaving their browser or LotusLive. Plus, users will be able to edit the files with Lotus Symphony or Microsoft Office, depending upon which document editor they prefer.
Start editing shared files inside IBM LotusLive™ with one click
Use IBM Lotus® Symphony™ or Microsoft® Office interchangeably
Gain greater control over who can do what to your shared files, down the the cell level
Our plans and ability to support IBM Lotus Symphony as a document editor are just beginning. To see where we are in the process, please stop by #831 at Lotusphere or sign up for an invitation.
Here’s a composite screenshot of what we’re demonstrating at Lotusphere 2010 this week:
Yes, it has been a while since our last post, but that’s because we have been working hard on a few things that we think will make 2010 a landmark year, as far as company milestones. We are expanding the scope of our award-winning collaboration to include new file types and applications. We are adding new features to our roadmap, and developing some exciting projects with our partners. Therefore, here’s what you can expect in 2010:
New Products – We know we have been talking about it for a while, but it’s finally here – the Office trifecta: Excel, Word, and PowerPoint collaboration. We will be demoing it and more this week at Lotusphere 2010 in Orlando. If you would like to be included in our beta release, send an email to Support (support@…) or send us a DM via Twitter (@expressocorp). We would love to get your pre-GA release feedback.
New Features – We’ve got some great product enhancements lined up for this year. 2010 is the year for document collaboration!
New Partnerships – Our team continues to establish partnerships with leading companies. By combining strengths, we can bring you better solutions.
Thanks you for using eXpresso and for sending us your feedback. We trust you will like what we have in store for 2010, and we hope your year is already off to a great start.
Hitch was on TV the other night. I didn’t watch it because I’ve already seen it, but the part I flipped past showed the “first kiss” technique. The technique being, you lean in 90% of the way, and if she is ready for the kiss, she’ll lean in the remaining 10% to seal the deal. (If you haven’t seen it, you can watch it here.)
This is analogous with what Microsoft will be doing next year with Office 2010. I think Microsoft will come to market with Office 2010, aka lean in to kiss the business market, but most businesses won’t kiss back. Here’s why.
Microsoft isn’t leaning in far enough. 1. The business market is going to need to put significant effort into it if they want some lip. From what I’ve gathered, Microsoft Online Services or SharePoint will be required in order to collaborate online with Office 2010. If you have ever tried to setup any of those services, you’ll know it’s not simple and there are many moving parts. The market needs a simple document collaboration solution that anyone can start using right away and change on the fly without having to engage IT.
2. Office Web Apps will also compromise features for browser compatibility. In their own words, Microsoft claims the new Web version of Office will have “high” fidelity. From where I sit, that’s another way of saying that in order to make Office work in all browsers, they had to make it a Javascript application and drop some functionality. From a development standpoint, it is an awesome accomplishment. From the user perspective, it just won’t be the same as using Office in the desktop environment.
3. We have learned that users want 120% of Office. In other words, people want more than what they are getting today. It’s not just about putting Office online. Businesses want the added collaborative benefits that only a cloud-based service can provide. Google Docs has proven there is more to document editing, but Google has failed to provide an adequate solution for the business world, who primarily uses Office and has billions of legacy Office files that lose almost all fidelity when imported into Google Docs.
In summary, what businesses have asked for is pretty simple. They want the ability to share editing responsibility of Office files quickly and easily. They want to use what they already have, know, trust. They want to keep their files intact and how they expect them to look. They want to open one file, any time, to view the most recent version and edit it for the benefit of others… but they don’t want to worry about coordinating real-time edits of the same file.
Given Microsoft’s massive marketing resources, I’m sure they’ll be able to seduce enough users to keep their “B.M.O.C.” reputation, but Microsoft will need more than a breath mint to knock the market off its feet. That’s why I encourage you to try eXpresso. You’ll see we deliver the familiar desktop experience through the browser and modify that experience just enough to support real-time collaboration without affecting the fidelity of your files.
In light of the recent EditGrid announcement to discontinue sales and refocus its development efforts on new products, we would like to extend a special offer to EditGrid customers so they may continue editing spreadsheets online with confidence.
When you’re ready to subscribe to our service, simply enter promo code “EditGrid09” during the payment process. This offer is only available to the first 250 users and will expire after October 09, 2009, so please sign up today for your free trial!
