Apple's iWork the No. 1 competitor to Microsoft Office?
According to market researcher NPD, Apple's iWork has suddenly emerged as the primary competitor to Microsoft Office, taking the No. 2 spot in office suite retail sales during the 2005 calendar year.
The firm said Apple grabbed a 2.7 percent unit share at retail, while Corel took only 1.6 percent share with its WordPerfect Office suite, reports CNet News.com. Meanwhile, Microsoft maintained its dominance with nearly 95 percent of unit sales.
"Apple's share is particularly impressive considering that iWork runs only on Macs, which account for a small fraction of computers, said NPD analyst Chris Swenson. "Apple's success for iWork has been pretty surprising."
Looking specifically at the Mac platform, iWork reportedly accounted for 17.4 percent office suite sales, compared to about 82 percent for Microsoft.
"Apple's iWork didn't overtake Microsoft Office, but I think taking almost a fifth of the Mac Office Suite market away from an entrenched competitor such as Microsoft is quite an accomplishment," Swenson said.
Apple introduced iWork just over a year ago at the 2005 Macworld Expo conference in San Francisco. Earlier this month the company updated the software with major enhancements to its Pages 2 and Keynote 3 component applications.
The firm said Apple grabbed a 2.7 percent unit share at retail, while Corel took only 1.6 percent share with its WordPerfect Office suite, reports CNet News.com. Meanwhile, Microsoft maintained its dominance with nearly 95 percent of unit sales.
"Apple's share is particularly impressive considering that iWork runs only on Macs, which account for a small fraction of computers, said NPD analyst Chris Swenson. "Apple's success for iWork has been pretty surprising."
Looking specifically at the Mac platform, iWork reportedly accounted for 17.4 percent office suite sales, compared to about 82 percent for Microsoft.
"Apple's iWork didn't overtake Microsoft Office, but I think taking almost a fifth of the Mac Office Suite market away from an entrenched competitor such as Microsoft is quite an accomplishment," Swenson said.
Apple introduced iWork just over a year ago at the 2005 Macworld Expo conference in San Francisco. Earlier this month the company updated the software with major enhancements to its Pages 2 and Keynote 3 component applications.
Comments
Originally posted by kmok1
Competitor to Office? Looks like Apple better get a move on their spreadsheet program and some LookOut look-alike...
It's called Mail.app and iCal, and it eats LookOut for breakfast. That is, unless you are retarded.
Pretty good figure, and in line with the old comeback "market share isn't the same as the number of machines being used out there". Windows boxes get chucked out much faster than Macs. Being unreliable is a bonus to their market share figures - so long as every 1-2 year old Windows box thrown away is always replaced by another.
Originally posted by Robin Hood
It's called Mail.app and iCal, and it eats LookOut for breakfast. That is, unless you are retarded.
In case you are too blind to see, Outlook is ONE program; Mail and iCal are two. In Outlook, I can send an email with calendar functions; can't do that w/ Mail.
Anyone know?
Originally posted by kmok1
In case you are too blind to see, Outlook is ONE program; Mail and iCal are two.
Relax sparky. This merely reflects a difference in philosophy...swiss army knife vs. single tools that integrate.
Originally posted by kmok1
In Outlook, I can send an email with calendar functions;
What exactly does that mean? What does it mean to "send an email with calendar functions"?
Originally posted by Anders
How many here has iWork and DON`T have Office on their HDs?
Here, we have one Mac with Office+VPC that also has iWork (had 05 now 06) and 4 Macs with only AppleWorks and iWork 06...
I will *never* install a MS app on my G5 here at this desk.. (or my personal PowerBook) I'm fully MS free on the Macs I use day-to-day and couldn't be happier.
NeoOffice/J happens to do everything I currently need from an office suite. I really haven't had any issue with it aside from aesthetics, but to me, it's not worth $250 or whatever to get a prettier office suite.
Originally posted by Chris Cuilla
What exactly does that mean? What does it mean to "send an email with calendar functions"?
It means that you can send out an email which books people or resources for a particular date & time.
Sure you can mail iCal events to people, but there's no central booking system whereby you can check a person/resource's schedule before booking them as you can do with Outlook and Exchange.
I admit that I like Mail and iCal better than Outlook, but they certainly aren't as mature as a corporate resource management system.
If Corel had used their brand to build a truly cross-platform suite years ago, they wouldn't have been humiliated by a half-a-real-product like iWork.
Originally posted by Anders
How many here has iWork and DON`T have Office on their HDs?
Actually, of the two dozen or so Mac owners I know, None of them have iWork, and every one of them has some version of Microsoft Office on their Macs. This doesn't even include the public schools around here that all have Microsoft Office on the school Mac's, but I have yet to see iWork on any of them.
Originally posted by auxio
It means that you can send out an email which books people or resources for a particular date & time.
Sure you can mail iCal events to people, but there's no central booking system whereby you can check a person/resource's schedule before booking them as you can do with Outlook and Exchange.
What you are talking about is more a function of a client and server based system. Apple has the client portion but not the server (Exchange). I understand that there are some ways of integrating some of that stuff with Exchange (but don't quote me on it).
Oh, and by the way...I use Outlook and Exchange at work all the time. It's scheduling features are buggy and inconsistent to the point of incredible annoyance.
Originally posted by kmok1
In case you are too blind to see, Outlook is ONE program; Mail and iCal are two. In Outlook, I can send an email with calendar functions; can't do that w/ Mail.
Betcha you'll be able to in Leopard. It's called "stealth" development. It's right under your nose, but you still can't see it. =]
Originally posted by SpamSandwich
Compared to Microsoft's share, iWork is just catching the crumbs that fall from the table... hardly the "#1 competitor" position.
Unless you can find another program that outsells iWork against Office, then it is indeed the primary competitor. Nobody says it's ready to overtake Office, but if you don't understand what "primary" and "#1 competitor" (to use your own words) means, then maybe you need to go back to English class.
It's like an 8th grade girl's locker room in here!
Translation for the humor impaired: be nice, everyone. Too much snarking going on throughout this thread for no good reason.