SmartSuite is a discontinued office suite from Lotus Software. The company made versions of its office suite for IBM OS/2 and Microsoft Windows.

Status

SmartSuite is no longer supported or maintained. SmartSuite used to be in maintenance mode, and supported with fixes and fixpacks on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. SmartSuite is not officially supported by IBM on versions of Windows after XP, but it does work very well on both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 and Windows 11. eComStation 1.0 included the OS/2 version of Smartsuite. It was an optional extra in later versions of eComStation. ArcaOS does not include Smartsuite, but is able to run it. In 2007, IBM introduced a new office suite called IBM Lotus Symphony, unrelated to the Lotus Symphony integrated application suite that Lotus previously released. In July 2012 the price for a user licence of Lotus SmartSuite 9.8 was US-$342.00 when purchased directly through the IBM website. In May 2013, IBM announced the withdrawal of SmartSuite. Marketing of the product ended in June 2013, followed by all support ceasing in September 2014. IBM has also announced that there will be no replacement for SmartSuite.

Components

The following applications are included in SmartSuite for Microsoft Windows:

Version history

Microsoft Windows

Compatibility

Most SmartSuite programs are capable of reading and writing the corresponding Microsoft Office files. The Microsoft programs, however, are no longer capable of reading formats of the Lotus programs (the latest version that could was 2003). Furthermore, several of the SmartSuite components provide functionality not found in the Microsoft Office suite, for example Lotus FastSite and Lotus SmartCenter.

IBM vs Microsoft

In his finding of facts in United States v. Microsoft, Judge Jackson determined that because of IBM's marketing of Lotus SmartSuite, and other alternatives to Microsoft products (like World Book electronic encyclopedia instead of Microsoft's Encarta ), Microsoft "punished the IBM PC Company with higher prices, a late license for Windows 95, and the withholding of technical and marketing support." Microsoft did not grant IBM OEM rights for Windows 95 until 15 minutes prior to the release of Windows 95, August 24, 1995. Because of this uncertainty, IBM machines were sold without Windows 95, while Compaq, HP, and other indulgent companies sold machines with Windows 95 from day one.