Why not Lotus Symphony right away ?

As I often advocate for OpenOffice.org in both private and business societies, I get questions about Lotus Symphony and Lotus Notes 8 from time to time. My advise to companies that are already using Lotus Notes is, to take Lotus Symphony serious as a future possibility. Right now I say: "Use Openoffice.org 3.0".

The reason for not advocating Lotus Symphony at the present time is, that the application is basically build on old code. If you look at it from a functions- and features perspective, the Lotus Symphony is not as rich as OpenOffice.org. At the same tim IBM has been very closed when it comes to information about the actual plans. Last autumn I asked IBM if there where plans to move from OOo 1.x code base to 3.x code base. I also asked if IBM had plans to implement support for extensions. No reply. During this years OpenOffice.org Conference IBM announced that there are plans to elevate the application to OOo 3 code base but still no time frame for the plans (did I miss something?). That is the reason why I put Lotus Symphony 'on hold' as the best alternative for the moment. I hope IBM will show me that they can do better, but at the time that happens, a lot of customers will be using OpenOffice.org. With a clear and accurate time plan for the development of Lotus Symphony, lots of customers might be able to make another decision.

I see a lot of good perspective in Lotus Notes in the future. It give meaning to build productivity tools on the same (eclipse) platform and the screencasts I have seen so far from Notes 8.5 looks nice. Imaging composite applications with Lotus Notes, Websites and a spreadsheet or text document ? It gives very good meaning.