IBM made a big splash a couple of weeks ago when it released a new productivity suite based on the Productivity Tools in Lotus Notes 8. I joked with my colleagues that it should be called “SmartSuite for Notes.” But I never dreamed Lotus would reach back even farther and dub the them Lotus Symphony.
I remember the first incarnation of Lotus Symphony. A integrated software package for DOS, it included a spreadsheet (of course), word processor, database, charts, and communications program, although if I remember correctly, all of the modules looked suspiciously like a spreadsheet. I bet I still have a couple of .WRK files on some floppies somewhere. But eventually our family settled on Lotus 1-2-3 for spreadsheets and Microsoft Word for DOS for word processing (at a time when everyone else used WordPerfect).
Even though John Dvorak dubbed the original Symphony “one of the bottom 10 worst software disasters,” I think enough time has passed for Symphony to have largely shed its negative connotations. In fact, it probably doesn’t have any connotations anymore. And I find it fascinating to see new life breathed into this old brand, along with the resurgence of Lotus itself.
What’s the next Lotus brand to be resurrected? Agenda? Magellan?
You know, I’m sure there’s some clever joke about “Dvorak” and “From the New World Symphony” that could be made here, but I’m not witty enough to make it.