IBM launches online office suite IBM Docs

Almost a year ago, IBM promised to launch its own alternative to Google Docs and Office 365 - LotusLive Symphony. And the company has fulfilled the promise. True, the service is called differently - IBM Docs and for now it has no relation to the SaaS-platform LotusLive. IBM Docs is now in Beta the status and located on the strange portal Lotus GreenHouse. It's strange because, first, why it's Green, while the company is Blue? And second, IBM doesn't clearly explain the purpose of this portal and how long it will exist. It provides several IBM services for free, including Lotus Connections, Lotus Quickr, Lotus Sametime, Lotus iNotes. Moreover, the portal has less restrictions than bugs. But let's get back to the IBM Docs.

IBM Docs really exceeded our expectations. It works not only with IBM Symphony formats but also with MS Office documents. Moreover, the service shows excellent results in supporting Microsoft docs and spreadsheets formatting (perhaps even better than Office Web Apps). There are certainly some problems with further formatting of complex tables in the text editor and IBM's spreadsheets don't support diagrams yet - but for the first version, it works very well.



Each IBM Docs app supports real-time collaboration. You can see who is currently editing the document and what part he is editing right now. And you can chat with co-workers in the sidebar comments. The comments (discussion) can be linked to a specific location in the document.

And the killer feature of IBM Docs (compared to competitors) - is an opportunity to assign tasks in the document to different users. For example, you can assign the document part to the particular employee, and only he will be able to edit it. You can also assign the due date and the Reviewer who will check this part after the owner finish his work.

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