Separately, on Monday afternoon, Yahoo said that it paid $350 million to acquire Zimbra, a start-up that developed a Web-based e-mail and collaboration package comparable with Microsoft Exchange and Outlook.
The computing giant, which has been challenging Microsoft's desktop dominance for years, said that Lotus Symphony is a standards-based alternative to Microsoft's proprietary Office. IBM on Tuesday announced the release of Lotus Symphony, a suite of free desktop applications based on the open-source product. After years of watching Microsoft rake in billions of dollars from its desktop software franchise, its competitors are pouncing.
