I've been using the OpenOffice productivity suite for all my document, spreadsheet and presentation work for the last two years with great success (even though 95% of the people I exchange documents with were using Microsoft Office, nobody ever noticed). However, OpenOffice.org, like many open source efforts, needs some marketing help, a big name to push them into the spotlight. And while I’m surprised IBM has volunteered, that's exactly what is happening, with a twist.

There are a few complications. IBM calls its new office productivity suite, built upon OpenOffice, Lotus Symphony. This disappoints two groups. The first group, fans like me of OpenOffice, wish it kept the OpenOffice name to help further the open cause. The second group wishes the old Lotus Symphony office suite, an early competitor to Microsoft Office, had climbed out of the grave. Of course, I'm assuming people remember Lotus Symphony at all, much less remember it fondly. If you do, let me know.

IBM has officially released a beta version of OpenOffice, er, Symphony, not the fully baked version. I don't usually review beta products, but Google ruined that: it leaves the “beta” tag on products for years, even when they charge customers to use them. Since everyone can download Lotus Symphony for free here, my main concern about beta reviews is answered: people who want the product can get it.

Here's what I like about it: IBM adopted a single-window approach with tabbed pages, just like the Firefox browser shows multiple Web sites inside one browser window. Even more interesting, IBM shows all three document types inside that one window: Tab one is a text document; Tab two, spreadsheet; Tab three, presentation.

Two more opinions: Microsoft fan, John Obeto, reviews Lotus Symphony (hates it) and Sun's StarOffice (likes it). Plus, Kevin Tolly  reviews Lotus Symphony (and likes it, too).

This approach takes less screen real estate since all your open documents fit into one frame. However, the value lessens slightly because of the different orientation used to work on different documents. Text documents tend to be taller than wide, and spreadsheets tend to be the opposite. Still, when you have four versions of a document open at once, it's easy to control which version is front and center without covering your screen with document editing windows.