News from IBM: IBM offers free PC software.

IBM offers free PC software. Steve Lohr. IHT.com. Online September 2007. IBM plans ... offering free programs for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. … the desktop software, called IBM Lotus Symphony, … will be available as free downloads from the IBM Web site. … (Note from Ginny: This is good news for many of us without budget for software purchases or upgrades. There is a growing movement to make applications available free for download or for online use. Be sure to check out Google regularly, as they offer many applications online, especially for the education community, and are developing more regularly. Many of Google’s offerings, like Google itself, are available in multiple languages. Another example, called “metaplace”, available in spring 2008, is a tool for inventing virtual spaces on the net without knowledge of programming languages.)