Forrester Research: Microsoft Office is still the king in enterprise

By on May 12, 2010 at 10:30 PM
Business May 12, 2010

Office 2007

Forrester Research, “an independent technology and market research company,” surveyed 115 American and European companies, in an effort to create metrics of the office software landscape in enterprise. The results of the May 11th report are in, and the winner, by a landslide, is Microsoft Office 2007. Of the companies surveyed, 81% are currently using MS Office 2007 with with a lowly 4% using the free, online alternative Google Apps. Also of note: 78% of those running Microsoft Office 2007 indicated they utilize SharePoint for collaboration, with 33% responding in the “affirmative” when asked if they had plans to upgrade to Office 2010. Forrester’s conclusions:

The alternatives to Microsoft Office today do not meet the needs of the enterprises Forrester surveyed. Common end user barriers to adoption of alternatives include lack of required functionality, third-party integration requirements, user acceptance, lack of seamless interoperability with Office, and legacy content support needs. These gaps will be bridged in the coming years as Google, OpenOffice.org, and others mature.

Alright corporate drones, what are you using in your office? Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, Google Apps, other?

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  • Greg

    first

  • jaxstate

    Are these results a surprise to anyone?[we use MSO07]

    • MikeD

      Office is going to be dominant for at least another 10 years.

      Possibly by that time there will open document format that will allow many smaller cheaper apps and devices to produce docs that are just as interoperable as the Office suite and then it won’t matter what app you use. Just the final document format matters.

      • http://www.twitter.com/macewan Robert MacEwan

        **knock knock, just awaken from a coma? Oh yeah, well, it’s 2010.

  • Mark Texas

    Been using MSO10 for a month or so and it’s outstanding. The updates in Outlook alone further cement it’s position as the best enterprise grade email / PIM system coupled with Exchange 2k10.

  • VZWStevenGlansburgHoustonRegionalManager

    nah im not surprised. at all.

    but just to answer the question posed: i use google apps

  • http://impulsemagazine.net Impulse Magazine

    I think that Microsoft will only have a couple more years of dominance and then Apple will plan it’s global takeover

    • MikeD

      Are you nuts? Apple barely has 8 percent of the computing market? What world take over?

      You need to open your eyes to Google. They are actually Microsoft’s biggest threat.

      PS: Why the hell did Apple have to be brought into this?

      • tye

        Cause Apple is brought into every discussion on this site. A simple article on a new android powered phone arriving as a carrier always turns into an iPhone flame fest (not that I’m saying the fanboys are never to blame).

  • el jefe grande

    Apple is not for people who want to get real work done. Office 2010 plus windows 7 equate to a pretty nice computing/productivity experience.

    • MikeD

      @el jefe grande

      Why do the haters of Apple love to make an utter fool of themselves. Let me school you:

      Office would never have existed if it weren’t for the mac user.

      When MS Word first came out, the word processing environment was crowded with apps lications like Word perfect, Display Write, Wordstar. Word wasn’t even on the corporation radar. It was on the Mac where WORD had its chance to shine.

      The same goes for Excel which had to compete against the juggernaut Lotus 1-2-3 and even Quatro.

      oh and powerpoint…

      - – - – - -
      “The original version of this program was created by Dennis Austin and Thomas Rudkin of Forethought, Inc..[1] Originally designed for the Macintosh computer, the initial release was called “Presenter”. In 1987, it was renamed to “PowerPoint” due to problems with trademarks, the idea for the name coming from Robert Gaskins.[2] In August of the same year, Forethought was bought by Microsoft for $14 million USD ($26.8 million in present-day terms[3]), and became Microsoft’s Graphics Business Unit, which continued to further develop the software.”
      - – - – - -

      Another clear example of a geeks hate for Apple making them look foolish.

      And to bring it all in to focus. The Applications are what makes a computer a productive tool or a toy. Microsoft has been a big part of the Macs productive side since the early years.

      I recommend you take your childish prattle else where. You obviously are not a real technologist. Just an emotional Geek that wants to get a “+” from the other haters.

      • Dave Brown

        Maybe some of the Apple haters have owned the POS’s that Mac’s are, glitsy, shiny ones. I owned one, still do, a MacBook Pro, and that FPOS locked up and needed rebooting, or needed rebooting just because I upgraded some system software, just as often, or more so, than the WinTel machine that preceded it and that has taken its place for just was el jefe says, someone that wants to get real work done. For those that don’t and haven’t seen this, http://www.arbay.com/stuff/macparody.htm, it’s a great example of life with a Mac. Same goes for iPhone, That is exponentially a bigger POS than the Mac.

      • BizGuy

        once again, MikeD shows he’s the fool that calls everyone else fools.

        i’m not surprised.

    • tye

      Well that depends. Do you want to do graphic design? Make a hollywood movie? Do big science experiments? Get a Mac (which they already all do). Else, use a PC, which is what the majority do, because they don’t need the uses of an Mac.

      • BizGuy

        in my marketing background, i’ve seen very talented graphics designers working on PCs. the idea that Mac is critical for design, audio or video production is just hype.

      • MikeD

        @BizGuy

        Let me clue you in. I used to head a Marketing dept in a F500 company. When I first started there they were the marketing dept. was a windows shop. At the time the Macs ran circles around PCs

        At the time PCs had Harvard graphics, the macs had Aldus persuasion. Once I convinced my boss to buy 3 macs and I trained the writers and graphic designers how to use them. Then a lot of good rolled in.

        Primary benefits that first year of macs in the organization in 1993

        1. Less calls to tech support

        2. Better selection of graphic design apps. And MSWord and Excel two packs were bought for all the macs.

        3. An actual pantone matching system.

        4. Save slew of money being able to share our documents directly to the offset printers.

        5. had the first ethernet Lan locally several years before the company got off of Token ring.

        The point is the Macs had an advantage for a long time but…

        Over the years Windows has improved. it became more stable and more developers made apps that used to be exclusively on the mac for the PC as well.

        Because of that Macs have captured the mindset of graphics designers and many other creative fields.

        As long as the App is made either Windows and MacsOS computers can do the same things.

        Probably the biggest advantage left the Mac has is Colorsync.

        My earlier point was to inform that gentleman that blind hate has made him see what he wants to see and not the reality. Word and Excel were and still are awesome products and people were very productive with them on macs first. What the problem with the truth?

        But don’t underestimate me. You wanna talk shop bring it.

        @Dave Brown

        Sorry you had a bad experience but Apple’s PC market share is growing and their customer service is top rated. Obviously your rant doesn’t hold water.

      • http://lovenati.com Natalie

        of course you can make art on PC’s…but who wants to? artists are aesthetic and I lose so many song ideas in the complicated labrynth that is a shoddy design job called Windows. I know how to us a PC…grew up in the dot com era in silicon valley…but i prefer apple…and the only people who don’t prefer it don’t know it.

      • http://www.twitter.com/macewan Robert MacEwan

        ya, and clusters of Lin* box for cgi don’t forget

    • http://lovenati.com Natalie

      don’t say ignorant things, el jefe…

      why do people think Apple is fluff? the CEO of Quantum uses all Apple products his home and side businesses. if you wanna get real work done and not get distacted by Window’s complicated design, then use Pages, Numbers and Keynote which is totally compatible with MS10 and iCal and Address book…

      i do have to say I love Outlook for one reason…you can multi tag an individual for different categories…my mom can be “family” “business team” and “work out partners”

    • http://www.twitter.com/macewan Robert MacEwan

      get off your knees it’s embarrassing… “pretty nice computing/productivity experience”? Pretty nice? I realize the Windows platform is like the AOL of operating systems, but come on “Pretty nice” guess I couldn’t have said it any better.

  • Mojo

    An example of this could easily be said of any project. “115 American and European companies…” There is no qualifier as to who these 115 were nor how they were selected. Perpetuating such poor reporting only shows what a poor site BGR is for news. If this were the top 115 companies by employee size, 115 companies that subscribe to Forrester Research, or the top 115 companies by number of data losses is not known. You really do not provide any real information other than 115 people that “Forrester Research” asked. They could be 115 companies that commented on Microsoft issues. If you really want to report news, report the full facts as your users are smart enough to understand and make their own decisions.

  • Nokia N900

    How much will it cost to upgrade to Microsoft Office 2010?

    • BizGuy

      say goodbye to your first born.

    • http://www.twitter.com/macewan Robert MacEwan

      your soul

  • http://music.kwaping.com Kwaping

    We use only Open Office, and our only Windows box is for cross-browser testing. :)

  • Randy A

    I use iWork 09 and couldn’t be happier about it.

    • Helvetica

      Me too. Our office switched a year ago and there are no complaints.

  • David

    we just upgraded from windows NT to XP a couple years ago and we’re still using office 2003–we don’t even have the 2007 document compatibility patch. oh and our 40MB email inbox? yay!

  • RdX

    Google Apps in its current form is mostly aimed at SMBs < 100 employee, cash strapped startups, not some 115 F500 companies, Google Mail is the one service that stands out though

  • http://www.techbizresearch.com Hardik Upadhyay

    The foundation has been laid by Microsoft to enter the free software territory which was dominated by Google Apps.

    Also, the results also show the same results which were expected. Microsoft Office has evolved very much. So they can understand the need and requirements properly.

    • BizGuy

      For the record: the **true** foundation was laid by Google and other small development companies. MS is just catching up…finally. Glad to see MS getting on board.

  • Dave

    Um, we still use Office 2003. Mid-sized accounting firm in North NJ.

    Yeah, we’re up to date. So up to date that no VPN client that works with our 1974 firewall exists for 64-bit installations….

    ugh

  • http://www.pc-prime.com Ben

    I use openoffice and Google Apps. I have migrated several customers over to Google Apps as well.

    I do keep a copy of Office 10 on my laptop for testing purposes.

    Office is definitely still king for functionality but the others are catching up.

    I am also extremely happy to be out from under Outlook’s noose. I have to support it but I don’t use it at all for my business needs.

  • BizGuy

    I use both MS Office (don’t bother with Outlook, though!) and Google Apps. Google Apps is great for collaborating with people that are off-site (in my case, that’s pretty much everyone). The Web-based email with push IMAP & online docs are all I need, and neither costs a penny in licensing.

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