IBM Lotus Symphony goes portable…
We’ve blogged about IBM Lotus Symphony many times in the past, and are fans of this free office productivity suite.
Now there’s a portable version of this software, packaged to be run directly from a USB drive without installing anything nor leaving a footprint on the host PC.
The portable version was put together via a partnership between IBM, VMware and NSEC, and was packaged for NSEC’s Keypod line of USB storage devices.
It can be downloaded free of charge from the Keepod Store. This version will run from any USB storage device; ownership of a Keepod is not necessary. You will have to register and give a valid email address to get to the 188 MB file download.
Be advised that this version weighs in at a beefy 493 MB unzipped:
Like many portable applications, it doesn’t start up as quickly as the installed-to-the-hard-drive version. The portability factor is, in our view, a reasonable tradeoff for a slower-than-expected start up. Once the suite is open performance is on par with the installed version.
Edit 01/14/2010:
Here’s a more in-depth article about IBM Lotus Symphony courtesy of the How-To Geek…
January 19th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
Hey this is fantastic. There is nothing worse than having to install a thousand programs on your computer and this one is very handy…And it used to be very expensive and this portable version is free. I love free things.