BOSTON (Reuters) - IBM will offer help desk service for its
Symphony line of software, raising the competition with rival Microsoft
Corp's suite of Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
The programs from International Business Machines Corp have been
available for free on its Web site since September 2007, but businesses
can now buy contracts for help desk support for a flat fee of $25,000
per year, IBM said on Tuesday.
Companies and home users that don't want that support can continue
to obtain the word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software
for free.
It is the latest challenge to Microsoft Corp's Office, which faces
new competition from companies such as Google Inc and as well as free
collaboratively developed software such as OpenOffice.
Rebecca Wettemann, an analyst with Nucleus Research, said that
businesses are likely to give the IBM programs a serious look, just as
they have other Office rivals, including Google's Web based offering.
Google also sells support for its programs that rival Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Wettemann, whose firm advises companies on how to cut costs on
computers and software, said IBM may have a tough time convincing
businesses to pay for support of the relatively easy-to-use programs in
Symphony.
"Why do I need support for documents and spreadsheets?" she said.
The software is available at symphony.lotus.com.
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