IBM is set to offer businesses a free word processor, spreadsheet and business presentation program, which will go head-to-head with Microsoft Office.

Lotus Symphony is a repackaging of the OpenOffice suite of programs, which can trace its history back to StarOffice, a software suite once owned by German company Star, TechWorld reports.

"IBM is very pleased to be joining the OpenOffice.org community," said IBM's Mike Rhodin.

"We are very optimistic that IBM's contribution of technology and engineering resources will provide tangible benefits to the community membership and to users of OpenOffice.org technology around the world."

OpenOffice's John McCreesh added: "We welcome IBM's contributions to further enhancing the OpenOffice.org product. But equally important is IBM's future commitment to package and distribute new works that leverage OpenOffice.org technology supporting the ISO ODF standard."

Meanwhile, Microsoft is facing increased pressure from Google, which has unveiled a presentation tool that it will add to its Google Apps suite of office software applications.

As business IT becomes more important, firms are urged to ensure they have adequate IT support in place.

According to recent survey by Connect, the two biggest IT headaches for businesses were 'everyday hassles with IT' (37 per cent) and 'security concerns' (32 per cent)