IBM’s free office suite Lotus Symphony has seen more than 100,000 downloads in the first week of availability, while the official site has received more than one million visitors during that interval.

Lotus Symphony, which includes three core applications (Lotus Symphony Documents, Lotus Symphony Spreadsheets and Lotus Symphony Presentations), is available for download since September 18 and has separate Windows and Linux installers. Lotus Symphony supports multiple file formats, including Microsoft Office and Open Document Format (ODF), and also can output content in PDF format.

ODF makes digital information independent of the program from which it was created -- such as a word processor, spreadsheet or presentation software. This makes documents universally accessible on any platform, allowing information to be used in new ways.

"Providing productivity options to our employees is good on multiple levels," said Darren Creely of Prudential Insurance. "The tools comprising Symphony that we plan to use within Lotus Notes 8 represent an open alternative for the things we all use the most -- word processing, spreadsheets, presentations -- that will interoperate with other software, making it very versatile and useful."

Lotus Symphony surpassed Lotus Notes’ previous record of downloads, and that is impressive considering that Symphony is integrated into Lotus Notes 8 and that IBM already has an install base of 135 million licensed users for the latter.

Following Symphony’s success, IBM plans to increase the role played by the community in the future development of the software, considering that the official site (www.ibm.com/software/lotus/symphony) has already been modified according to users’ demands. IBM said that the community created around Lotus Symphony grew up so fast that support forum posts have accelerated from less than one hundred the first day to more than 600 daily.

"There is an evolution taking place in the way documents are being used for collaboration," said Mike Rhodin, General Manager, IBM Collaboration/Lotus Software. "Millions are seeing it. It's more than a free download. This tidal wave of adoption is creating an independent mass of users accustomed to open documents and poised to benefit from the innovative new capabilities they will soon afford."