IBM has seen the future, and in its vision, Linux-based servers and desktops will be powering tomorrow's office with Lotus Notes and Symphony in what it calls an open collaboration client solution.

The IBM open collaboration client solution brings together Lotus Notes; the Lotus Sametime messaging platform; WebSphere Portal; the Lotus Connections social networking software; Lotus Quickr, document management and collaboration software for teams; Lotus Expeditor, an Eclipse-based development environment; and Lotus Symphony. Symphony is essentially OpenOffice with an Eclipse-based user interface. Together these create a server-to-desktop office suite designed to compete with Microsoft's Windows-only bundle of Microsoft Office, Exchange and SharePoint.

At Lotusphere, IBM revealed that it will be delivering this soup-to-nuts office suite <A HREF="http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Enterprise-Apps/IBMs-New-Linux-Based-Notes-and-Symphony-Office/?kc=EWKNLNAV012308STR2">with the three biggest Linux distributions</A>: Novell, Red Hat and Ubuntu. Novell was the first of the Linux companies to join this initiative, in August 2007.