Back in June this year I wrote a post entitled “Should Microsoft be worried?” which discussed the open source productivity editors integrated into Lotus Notes 8. The message was clear for Notes customers… pay money for Microsoft Office or start using the editors which are effectively free because they’re already paid for courtesy of the Notes client license.

Let’s face it, Microsoft don’t even have to get out of bed to sell Office… the money just rolls in because most businesses and consumers believe there’s no alternative (and many get themselves tied into a license agreement which looks good value but is often an expensive option). I have a friend who had left her job at a large confectionery company and was starting her own business as a management trainer. She was talking about the cost of buying a laptop, and then having to buy Office to go on it – I asked why she didn’t just download OpenOffice for free, but to be honest her “what’s OpenOffice” reaction wasn’t a surprise. People just don’t know they have a choice.

Starting today, Lotus are getting very serious about competing with Microsoft in this space with the announcement of Lotus Symphony. If you were born in the 1970’s or earlier you may remember that there’s already been a Lotus Symphony, but this is a new offering which is effectively the Notes 8 productivity editors de-coupled from the Notes 8 client. This means that the editors are no longer just a free proposition for Notes customers… they’re free for everyone. Yes, you can download and use them free of charge.

Add to this the fact that IBM joined the OpenOffice.org community last week and you can see there’s a lot of commitment behind this move. What’s also interesting is that IBM (and Lotus) traditionally offer software for businesses, but now here’s something for the consumer market. Don’t forget that this is also an option for Linux users and at some point in the future Mac users. Okay, Microsoft probably aren’t shaking in their boots today, but that’s not the point… the point is that now you have a choice.

Final point – I pay taxes to the UK government and to my local authority. Millions of other people do the same. Some of that money swells the Microsoft coffers, and that makes me unhappy. There is a growing movement in the UK to stop this kind of behaviour and ensure that publicly-funded organisations take advantage of free open source software. Be part of it.