The software is developed by IBM China Development Laboratory, located in Beijing. Symphony 3.0 was originally planned to include other existing modules, including an equation editor, database software, and a drawing program. It incorporated code from 3.x, and includes enhancements such as new sidebars in its user interface and support for Visual Basic for Applications macros, OpenDocument Format 1.2, and OLE. IBM released version 1.0 of Lotus Symphony in May 2008 as a free download, and introduced three minor upgrades through 20.
The code in Symphony is the same as that for Notes 8's productivity tools. In 2007, IBM released Notes 8, and then released Notes' productivity tools as a standalone application, Symphony, in a beta one month later. Later that year, IBM announced that Lotus Notes 8, which already incorporated Workplace technology, would also include the same productivity tools as the Workplace Managed Client. In 2006, IBM introduced Workplace Managed Client version 2.6, which included "productivity tools" - a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation program - that supported ODF.
Symphony has its roots in the IBM Workplace Managed Client component of IBM Workplace. Lotus Symphony 3.0.1 adds enhancements including support for one million spreadsheet rows, bubble charts, and a new design for the home page.
In 2009 IBM created development tools for BlackBerry smartphones to link to IBM's business software, which also allow opening ODF file-formats, following a full Symphony later. Therefore, IBM does not have to release the source code of Symphony. version 1.1.4 was dual-licensed under both the GNU Lesser General Public License and Sun's own SISSL, which allowed for entities to change the code without releasing their changes. It is based on Eclipse Rich Client Platform from IBM Lotus Expeditor for its shell and 3 for the core office-suite code, which will likely be dropped in the next major version of the Apache OpenOffice. Ī web based version of Symphony, called LotusLive Symphony, was planned for the second half of 2011, although it was already announced in February 2010 for first half of 2010. Previous support for Lotus SmartSuite formats was disabled in Symphony 3.
It can also export Portable Document Format (PDF) files and import Office Open XML files. Symphony supports the OpenDocument formats as well as the binary Microsoft Office formats.