Could you scrap Microsoft Office applications?

IBM’s Lotus Symphony is a free-of-charge alternative to the ubiquitous Microsoft Office suite, based on Sun’s open source OpenOffice software. It purports to remain compatible with Microsoft’s “.doc” format (and newer incarnations), while removing licensing costs (but, not of course, support costs, since people still need training, technical support still costs money, etc.). Now they’ve decided to walk the walk.