Lotus Symphony Version 3 is now available

by Volker Weber

After many months of extended testing in beta and great feedback from our community of users we are pleased to officially release Lotus Symphony Version 3.

You need an IBM ID to download. Or you need to register to download. Whatever.

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Comments

when will they ever learn? Unbelievable.

Armin Auth, 2010-10-21

Well, you can "bypass without an IBM ID", where they ask you to register your name etc. then. It looks very IBM. :-)

Volker Weber, 2010-10-21

Agree they should make it easy to download, however there is an option to download with out an IBM ID & Password it is right next to the login box

Mitch Cohen, 2010-10-21

Reading this Announcement do you think MS are worried?

I guess someone hasn't learned about hyperlinks and linking to things like release notes.

I clicked the learn more button on the home page and it has 1.3 videos, no 3.0 videos. It gives the impression that you get what you pay for.

Hopefully someone will buy the "product launch for dummies" book soon.

Carl Tyler, 2010-10-21

You do not need an id to download.

Luis Guirigay, 2010-10-21

@Luis but you do need to register. That's the point.

Stuart McIntyre, 2010-10-21

And the first thing it does when you launch it, it calls home. Little Snitch caught it.

Volker Weber, 2010-10-21

Hey Carl - I'm not exactly sure which button you're talking about. The "Learn More" link at the bottom is for LotusLive. Anyway, you can find videos for Symphony 3.0 in the Symphony wiki's Learning Center. Here's a link
And we're continuing to create more 3.0 videos, so you'll see more shortly.
Hope that helps!
Joyce
P.S. I noticed that the carousel we have at the top of the learning center page doesn't highlight any 3.0 videos, so I'll try to get that addressed.

Joyce Davis, 2010-10-21

@Joy. I think that's the link Joy. All the videos across the top were 1.3. I would have expected 3.0 videos.

Carl Tyler, 2010-10-21

@Volker Symphony is not calling home . In Symphony Version 3 we implemented the ability for the code to check for updates. That is what it is doing. If you want to turn this off you can do so in Preferences -- Updates.

Eric Otchet, 2010-10-21

Hey, but no more soffice.bin process left behind after closing the program.
You simply gotta enjoy the little things you get ! :-)

Hynek Kobelka, 2010-10-21

Eric, you mean it checks for update without calling home? How does that work? :-)

Volker Weber, 2010-10-21

@Eric: " ... ability to check for updates...":
Any plans to implement such feature in Lotus Notes? Perhaps as Auto-Updater?
Just curious about it, I know there are a lot of technical reasons any auto-update would fail nowadays if the user is not an admin.

Christian Henseler, 2010-10-21

I don't understand the comments/fascination on having to enter your name, e-mail address and other pieces of information to download a software package.

Maybe I don't do this often enough, but it seems to me that most times when I go to download something that is "free", software (trial or full version), even some white papers, I have to register my name and e-mail address. Yes, I have seen some that don't require it, but I personally found it to be rare. If I was downloading something out of curiosity and did not have much need for it, I closed my browser and forgot about it. If I had real interest then I went ahead and registered.

I think it is fair for the person or company that produce the good to decide that having invested a significant amount of time in producing/packaging said good to want to gather some information on the people that consume the good. As a consumer of that good, I don't like that, I simply walk away.


Dimitri Prosper, 2010-10-22

Also, please note to post the above, I was required to enter my name and e-mail address. If I did not care, I would have walked away... :-)

Dimitri Prosper, 2010-10-22

:-)

Compare at chrome.google.com how it's being done.

Volker Weber, 2010-10-22

Yes, I agree, very good example and thank you for sharing this.

But shortly after downloading and installing it. My firewall complained that it was trying to access the Internet (was it calling home, looking for an update or maybe taking me to the Google home page so it get a hit that someone else is now using Chrome and I am sure stored my IP, OS and all kind of other information that the browser collects, would I have much preferred for it to take me to a blank page ... maybe)

When I started using it, I noticed an option to "Sign In" and personalize the experience...I wonder what that does if I click on it... @ one point or another they will get your information and know who you are.

Dimitri Prosper, 2010-10-22

Isn't that cool? No administrative barriers for adoption. And Google gets all that information instead of fake names and email addresses.

How fast did Chrome grow out of nowhere against competition that is also free? And what is Symphony's win after all those years against an expensive competitor?

Volker Weber, 2010-10-22

Sorry, on second thought, that is not a fair comparison. Chrome is a really lean and fast program.

Volker Weber, 2010-10-22

@Christian No plans for Notes that I am aware of . As you already mentioned Admins need control of the update process .

Eric Otchet, 2010-10-22

@Volker Your implication of phoning home was not correct. No information is being shared or collected or passed back to us in any way. The update function checks a file on the Symphony website. If there is new information in the file it presents it to the user and asks if they would like to get the new update. As I said previously you can turn the update check off in preferences.

Also .. the reason we need to ask for Name, Country and email is comply with US Export regulations. We created the Guest path through the download process because some people don't want to register and we didn't want to force that. We do need to comply with the Export laws so we need some information to make sure that we are not violating any laws.

Why do you require my full name and a working email address to post in this forum ?

Eric Otchet, 2010-10-22

@Volker: At least you are persistent...and I have stopped caring. Have a great weekend.

Dimitri Prosper, 2010-10-22

@Eric, thats a very fair point.

However, it always makes me wonder why Google and the other US-based vendors don't need to comply?

Stuart McIntyre, 2010-10-22

Eric, fair points. Thanks for explaining. The update process as you describe it makes perfect sense to me. And I do see the progress you are making.

The export regulations thing does not work for me. How would a name and an email address make you compliant, where you could just check the source of the download request as Google does. You don't have to ask anybody about his whereabout today. You for instance came in through the Comcast network in the US, and I don't want to be more specific.

Volker Weber, 2010-10-22

Eric, I forgot, why do I require this? If you provide comments, you attract all kinds of people who need a forum. I found that when people post under their real names, they tend to be more sensible. The email address is only for me, so I can talk to people who want to post here. I try to explain this in my FAQ.

Volker Weber, 2010-10-22

As a producer of free software - lots of it, I have to agree with Dimitri. The value in spending hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of hours creating free software comes not in the fame or glory or Tweets or blogging pomposity (which I readily admit to - I run a business), but in the one in a thousand chance that its importance and value to a user (usually an executive) or company sparks an idea that more things like it are possible.

To help that thought process along, having contact information and using it respectfully (a newsletter with single-click opt-out, for instance) while delivering value in that information at the same time is the conduit to future prosperity for the "free software" producer. I'm speaking strictly from a corporate perspective, not consumer. IBM is in a gray area with Symphony as its target market is corporations, but its software is available for consumer use as well.

As for "call home" I believe the practice is a relic from the 90s and today, there is no legitimate software that sends any personal or machine data without explicitly requesting permission, and then for diagnostic and aggregation purposes to improve products. Adobe Air, Firefox, Mac OSX, Flash embedded, iTunes for iOS all check for updates. I only wish our software (aside from the Air apps) could do the same, it would reduce my Inbox requests for free help for free software!

Rob Novak, 2010-10-23

Rob, as I said, Eric has gotten the "calling home" point across.

I maintain that IBM needs to remove all possible barriers* from downloading and installing the software if they want success. If they cannot get critical mass, Symphony does not matter. IBM's ultimate goal is to "liberate" IT budget that goes to Microsoft. Your case is completely different. SNAPPS is a much smaller entity than IBM after all. ;-)

*) And boy, has this improved over the last 18 months.

Volker Weber, 2010-10-23

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