IBM has tripled the number of download servers for its Symphony suite of free productivity apps, which compete with Microsoft Office and promote the ODF format

People apparently are already tuning in to IBM's Symphony. The company reported Wednesday that its free rival to Microsoft's Office suite was downloaded 100,000 times in the first week of release.

"To be honest, we were surprised at the speed with which people jumped on this," said Mike Rhodin, general manager of both IBM Collaboration and Lotus Software, in an interview Wednesday. To keep up with the number of people interested in downloading Symphony, IBM tripled the number of download servers it had for the suite of productivity applications in the first few days of its release, he said.