Still, the 20 percent of sales is still insignificant to the 80 percent of Office for Windows sales. Its a win-win for Microsoft either way. It also shows Microsoft is committed to the Mac, they started on it. Apple I believe holds a special place in the Company's heart regardless they are competitors. Microsoft could choose to make Office 2008 be the last release, but I think they see value in the relationship and platform to continue investing in it. Its also a think tank for innovations that end up in future releases of Office for Windows.

What is most impacting is that 5% of the market share constitutes 20% of their sales. A fact which is not insignificant at all. Makes you wonder what the Windows users who don't purchase MS Office are using.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2190711,00.asp
OpenOffice.org 2.3

Quote:
"Everyone who uses OpenOffice.org knows that this gigantic application suite is designed primarily as a free, plug-in replacement for Microsoft Office, complete with support for Microsoft's formats and a feature set that comes close to matching Microsoft's"
"but it's massively powerful, generally reliable, and 100 percent cheaper than Microsoft's offering".

"Makes you wonder what the Windows users who don't purchase MS Office are using."

They are using Office and XP pirated from the web or from a $5 DVD purchased in Thailand or Hong Kong.

I think these numbers are wrong. How can one believe that 10% of vista sales are to Mac owners. Macs are less than 5% of the personal computers out there; most Mac users have not use for Vista.

Vista is being installed on almost every now PC being sold now.

Bad data, I would say

Jason, I don't find that at all strange. First of all it clearly states

"Ten percent of Vista Business and Business Ulitmate SKUs go to Mac users," Swenson said.

Business and Ultimate can be virtualized. Apple has had a huge amount of sales. Business and Ultimate are not very common options in retail and it is worth clarifying that Joe said "Again, he referred to US retail sales,". So adding it all up it is a very probable scenario.

Gerado, Jayzee is right, the piracy rate for Office is very high, approximately 200 million. Its no different with the 2007 release too. I have seen some persons who I know are not working in certain environments running Office 2007 Enterprise edition. Which is only available under VLK.

Piracy of Windows and Office for Microsoft is in some ways a necessary evil. It will help keep the ecosystem secured. If they don't end up purchasing this release, there is always the sure chance they will get them on the next release or they simply won't choose Open Source.

Andre I understand the issue with piracy. Yet I'm hard pressed to believe it is skewed. Is there a higher percentage of pirates on the Windows platform than on the Mac? If so that would explain a bit. If more people pirate software on Windows then less people buy it, but I'd guess people would be equally dishonest on both platforms. We could argue that they could be more so on Mac who's Open Office alternative isn't as polished.

Now in Windows Open Office is quite polished and a competitive product to MS Office (I'm not saying it is better, just that for a great deal of people it is good enough). So maybe we are seeing more people using Open Office.

To sum it up. If people are just as dishonest on both platforms piracy would not explain the skew on the stats. Both sides would loose to piracy and would be proportionally the same sale percentage (5% for Mac sales and 95% for Windows).

More so given the fact that Mac has fewer Open Source or free alternatives people are more pressed to get the MS Office version. Either legit or pirate. Why are Mac users buying more legit copies of MS Office than Windows users? Do they just have more money to burn? Mhhh don't think so.

My take is that Windows users are making a bigger use of their office productivity tool alternatives than Mac users are. Or maybe they're just making use of their OS alternatives, getting a Mac and buying MS Office. Which they were used to on their Windows box.

I am not a Mac fan, not owning one, and basically thinking the hardware is overpriced. But I do know that I like the idea of Mac's OSX, and the security in it that is basically problem free like Linux. That being said, I do not plan on buying a Mac.

However, Mac is for high end users with the money. They as a rule are willing to spend more on software, I believe. And since, Vista, Mac has come back. If you don't believe this, read this;

http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/06/23/mac-laptops-outpace-pcs-in-sales

Link is titled; Mac laptops outpace PCs in sales
-------------------------------------------------
sure, it might be mostly only in the USA that Mac is kicking butt, but that is where the money is at folks. No matter how you slice it, Vista is a failure of sorts, will Vista make money for MS, yes, will it increase market share, no it will lose.

It's worth reminding everyone that these are US-only figures, and that the US accounts for only about a quarter of the world PC market. Most of Microsoft's market does not lie in the US.

Joe , you are showing us a paradox screnario:

1) You perceive that the sales of MAC go up

2) You perceive that Microsoft Office is a lousy product. You prefer Open Office

3) You dislike WinTel , you prefer MAc

With the combination of these 3 points , you are telling us that you dislike Micorsoft product , then you go for a Mac , since MAc has limited numbers of chioce of applications , you eat you own words and resort to buying Microsoft Office which you don't like at the first place

I-Man , before you post anything pertaining to VCSY. Please STOP !

Learn to type , not cut-and-paste

Joe , you like Mac , you dislike Intel and Windows.

You buy a Mac with Microsoft Office for Mac.

So , to make it right , you hate Windows Division of Microsoft but you love Macintosh Division of Microsoft .

It sounds weired ...

Eder and I-Woman I can't see how you come up with such nonsense. The sales of Macs going up isn't "perceived" it is a fact. You can call SEC up and ask them personally. It's all there in black and white.

Aside from my post, Marco's and a quote from Swenson I don't see any reference to Open Office made by Joe.

Mac's are Wintel products too. That is the point being said. Not by Joe, but by Swenson. A lot more users are buying (proportionally) MS Office for Mac than Windows. Same thing happens with Windows Vista Business and Ultimate which can be legally virtualized.

A final note to Eder. When you say:

since MAc has limited numbers of choice of applications , you eat you own words and resort to buying Microsoft Office

Exactly what do you mean? You mean to say that Mac has a subset of Windows' application super set? That in the much broader set of Windows applications there are better products than Microsoft Office and thus when limited to the Mac subset the user needs to "resort to buying Microsoft Office". Isn't it you then who is contradicting yourself? There must be, from your statement, a better alternative to Microsoft Office that is only available on Windows. Which one is it?

Gerado, I look at it from the perspective of compatibility. More Mac users are buying MS Office because they want to maintain 100% compatibility with Office for Windows. Also, Mac users tend to pay a premium on products and they will do the same for software in addition to that, they like stuff that works and MS Office works. The larger user base on Windows makes it a larger market for piracy regardless there is a huge majority of legitimate users. Take this into account, Windows is around 900 million users (expected to hit a billion by 2008), Mac is around 22 to 23 million. Its a stark contrast there, Microsoft Office and alternatives such as WordPerfect and OO.org could all have a healthy market. According to the figures:

WordPerfect Office - 25 million users
Open Office - downloaded 67 million times
Pirated Microsoft Office - 200 million
Genuine purchases of MS Office - 300 million

Regardless of the 200 million pirated Office installations, MS still acknowledges it in conferences as 500 million user base, because universally they are Microsoft Office users.

The big question is, what are those other 308 million Windows users using for Office productivity?

Quote;

Lawrence D'Oliveiro :

It's worth reminding everyone that these are US-only figures, and that the US accounts for only about a quarter of the world PC market. Most of Microsoft's market does not lie in the US.
----------------------------------------------------
Yes, while you are correct, and I did so state it was USA, but remember the most important points. Only the EU market is larger than the USA market. The EU has grown by taking in a lot of eastern block (but poorer) countries. Still, the only rich countries that tend to actually buy MS products as opposed to pirating them, are the richer areas of the world. These are the EU, USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, and Taiwan. About in that order too. So Mac is cutting in market wise on a few countries that "pay up," like the USA, and perhaps western Europe and Canada to a lesser degree. Lawrence D'Oliveiro :

This has to hurt MS more, because this is the base that actually buys MS softare instead of pirating it. Or is the USA is a 1/4 of the world's market, its sure one of the quarters that mostly buys most or all of its software, making it a very profitable 1/4. So the Mac is making major inroads on one of the best markets that MS has. This would also tend to support some of Joe Willcox figures as to why Mac users are buying Office is such high percentages.

Also if figures were in, I would expect to see the Mac selling better in Canada and Western Europe as well.

The Mac is resurgent because Vi$ta is perceived to be of poor quality and a major step back in Operating Systems from XP. Microsoft needed to make major gains in sercurity from XP, which it has clearly failed to do so.

Also, OpenOffice is mostly given to people by cd, and not just downloads. It also comes with most Linux operating systems disk, that or Koffice on most, a few with Abiword, all 3 free. Not everyone, or rather most people, do not download openoffice, expecially if you have dialup, its a big file. Also, openoffice is on many computers pre-installed when you buy them. Many businesses also install openoffice and use it on their computers, from one disk, rather than downloading many times. I think Joe Willcox already did an article placing OpenOffice at 20% of the office use and climbing. Heck its free, and dosen't spy on you. Does everything and more than I need or would ever want, and dosen't seem to have all the bugs of M$ Office.

set yourself free with a free download at:

http://www.openoffice.org/

Quote from the link; "OpenOffice.org 2.3

OpenOffice.org 2.3 incorporates an array of new features and enhancements to all its core components, and protects users from newly discovered security vulnerabilities. It is a major release and all users should download it.

Plus: It is only with 2.3 that users can make full use of our growing extensions library."
--------------------------------------------------
Click on the download tab at the top of the page in the link. Available for most Operating Systems including Windows.

Andre, I'm looking at it from exactly that perspective. A perspective of compatibility. Clearly a Mac user that wants to use MS Office does so for compatibility and/or familiarity reasons. Isn't that also the reason you use it on Windows?

Maybe like I said, people are moving to Mac and taking their software with them. Meaning they buy a Mac and install Vista and MS Office.

Your argument regarding paying premium is questionable. Although at first it would sound convincing it can be challenged by high end PCs. Particularly high end Sony, HP and Acer laptops. Those users would pay more too and would statistically even things out and maybe they are "evening things out". So these numbers shown by Joe would be even more impacting given that the PC market also includes premium payers like Sony VAIOs and Acer Ferrari buyers.

Gerado, for me when it comes to Microsoft Office and upgrading to newer releases of it, its a case of new functionality while using my existing skills and knowledege of the product. Compatibility is an important factor too and seamless integration across the applications makes it a number 1 choice not to mention the rich feature set and functionality.

As for premium, yes, that does exist on the PC side, but a Acer Ferrari 5000 I received in January of 2007 would have cost more if it was a similarly configured MacBook Pro.

Chips, keep that garbage called OO.org away from computers. Any computer I see it on, I have a copy of Office 2003 Pro to install on that machine - and yes, I remove OO.org. I rarely see OO.org by the way traded through CDs, its user base has grown exponentially through accidental downloads when people Google for free Microsoft Office.

Andre, I use both PCs and Mac. I'm typing this in a Mac PowerBook G4 12". I have Open Office and MS Office installed and I use both. Although I use OO more often give my work with spreadsheets and CSV data. Excel has this tendency to do it its way or the highway. I use MS Office mostly for presentations and to make use of the Mac's dual head capability. That aside I see very few cases in which I would use MS Office over OO. More so in Windows. Which doesn't support a native print to PDF as OS X does. Making OO's export to PDF or SWF a great feature.

Well, some users and environments are setup differently Gerardo, you are just such a case. I don't base my needs on "I am not using all the features of MS Office so Open Office would be better". Its more of skill set, features, ease of use and approach of doing things in MS Office and the work flow capabilities and the majority of users I exchange files with.

Ha, ha ,ha
Andre Da Costa :"Acer Ferrari 5000 I received in January of 2007 "

http://laughingsquid.com/microsoft-sent-a-free-laptop-with-windows-vista/
Quote:Microsoft Sent An Acer Ferrari Laptop With Windows Vista: Scott Beale on Tuesday, December 26th, 2006
"I’m not sure how I was selected to be one of the people receiving this (I’m assuming there are others, but I haven’t come across any yet)"
"So, today the laptop arrived (here are some photos) and it wasn’t just some generic laptop, but a really cool, supercompact Acer Ferrari 1000 12.1” notebook, with an 1.80GHz AMD Turion 64×2 with 1GB of DDR2 RAM and a SATA 160GB hard drive."
---------
What do you think, Chips , Gerardo, Joe? (additional that perhaps someone was more privileged)
now I have to go, maybe tomorrow I could have some comment.

Andre I never said "I am not using all the features of MS Office so Open Office would be better". Nor do I base my preference on that statement either. I clearly said I perfer OO because it behaves better with CSV data which I use commonly. I also prefer OOs native export to PDF and SWF. Although PDF export is native OS X it isn't so in Windows. I also clearly said I prefer MS Office's PowerPoint on Mac (not Windows) because of its superb support for dual head presentations.

Clearly I prefer OO for distinct features MS Office lacks and I prefer MS Office on Mac for distinct features I lack in Windows (dual head and PDF export).

Last, but not least. I had very little problems exchanging information with MS Office users while using Open Office. More so you may note that MS Office for Mac also has a "compatibility" wizard for its own documents. That means the back and forth flow of information between Mac and Windows MS Office versions isn't as fluid as you'd like to make us believe. There are ups and downs even when both are Microsoft products.

Acer Ferarri laptops are nice, but my PowerBook G4:

-fits in an airplane table with the food tray by one one side, coffee and all
-runs great multimedia stuff
-runs Windows XP
-runs application servers
-runs MS Office
-runs database servers
-has the following uptime as I write this post:
Caireann:~ gerardo$ uptime
20:38 up 48 days, 1:37, 5 users, load averages: 0.46 0.85 0.94

Has fallen off my table a few times, has fallen off a 4.5 foot tall drawer (got dented and repaired with pliers). More so just four weeks ago it sustained a crash when I fell off my motorcycle(20 mph or so). Got dented a bit on the corner, but as you can see from the uptime it didn't freeze, lock up or in any way stop working. I wasn't so lucky despite the protective gear and helmet.

What isn't there to love about a Mac?

PS. do you think if I keep shilling like this I'll get a MacBook Pro just like those guys got an Acer Ferrari?

:)

Just want to correct your history slightly. Word was a DOS program prior to either Mac or later Windows version. But both Excel and Powerpoint started on the Mac.

Everyone... read carefully rather than falling into Joe campaign of hoodwinking and fooling people.

He says 20% of RETAIL Sales..... and how much percent is RETAIL sales for office to the overall sale???? 20?

Fact: Office for Mac is available only through retail... No OEMs (Office for windows is available through Retail, OEM, VLKs etc)

So, joe, to look at it realistically, close to 100% of office apps on Mac are running on MS OFFICE.

BTW joe, what is that you are smoking while writing? The Apple iWeed?

I don't know, but you have to be fair, really if you sell your integrity the less that you can obtain is a laptop (and a good one.....he,he)

Mark
I did actually use word when it was a DOS program, and I remember now that at the time I didn't think much of windows compared to DOS, as it needed (even then) a hell of a lot of resources, resources which now are miniscule in size to today's RAM, back then I had a brand new 486 with a whopping 4meg of ram, then DOOM came out and I needed a boot disk to run it, because it needed 4 meg of ram to run, now people are winging about the requirements of Vista, people it never ends the bigger the storage the bigger the program, the bigger and faster the ram, the more that is needed. Such is technology.
When I went to a University on day trip from school they had a computer there that had a HARD DRIVE, and it was big too, fully encased in a plastic container and was bigger than a dinner plate, and how much storage was it...a huge 20 MEGABYTES !!!

Neil you might recall that Windows back in the day ran on top of DOS. That is why it took more resources. Vista doesn't run on top of XP. It runs instead of XP. There is also a huge difference between a multitasking graphic shell called Windows and a singletasking OS called DOS.

The complain comes because Vista looks too much like XP in terms of features and functions and uses considerable amount of resources. Vista Aero sucks up resources like there is no tomorrow and is graphically less impressive than Linux's Beryl which uses much less resources. My 4 year old NVidia graphics card runs Beryl smoothly.

It was bad enough that XP was divided into Home and Pro. Now people have to choose between 4 mainstream versions (Home Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate which are the most commonly listed options online and retail). It is getting all too complicated. On top of that you'll have some software issues plus hardware issues. All of this just to replace an OS (XP) that for most people is perfectly fine.

D-DOS is nearly right. On the Wintel platform, very few people purchase retail licenses. Medium and large corporations purchase volume licenses through a reseller, while home users and small businesses generally get Windows and Office pre-installed on a new PC.

Volume licenses are available for Office for Mac, but I suspect that most Mac users purchase retail boxed copies.

Still, even with this information, it is interesting that retail boxed license sales are so large for the Mac.

Marco, it still hurts you didn't get one huh? I don't see the point of you digging up that link.

proven the PC maker's design sucks.....

Get real. Not all of Microsoft's growth problems are due to piracy.

I have Office, but I took it OFF of the PC's in my network. I find MSWord to be infuriating and anachronistic, so I purchased WordPerfect, instead. For everything else, there's OpenOffice. The risks from not having the most current Office update, because I did did not know to look for it, and the hassles of dealing with inputing the CD's and license number each time I did update it, were unacceptable. Granted, OpenOffice does not automatically update, either, but it does show an icon on the toolbar to let me know when an update is available. In less time than it would take me to let Microsoft check one computer for needed Office updates, I can download a copy of not just a security update, but the very latest and greatest complete version of OpenOffice to my server. From there, I can legally install it to any computer I wish, without having to prove my right to do so.

Incidentally, Andre Da Costa, in spite of what you think about us, most OpenOffice users are more than smart enough to know that Microsoft Office is not free (neither in the sense of "free beer" nor of "freedom"). We have heard about OpenOffice, investigated it, downloaded it quite intentionally (thank you very much!), installed it, and stuck with it. The only accidental users I know of are those with OEM copies of Office!

Another explanation for the disparity of Office sales between PC and Mac users has not been mentioned: Most PC users who WANT Office already have it, but it has only recently become available for Mac. Another possibility is that Mac users have yet to learn what some long-time Office users have already learned. There are a lot of current and former Office users who would agree with the following sentiments:

"How did such expensive and bug ridden software get to be the standard office productivity suite? Microsoft accomplished something that had eluded other software providers. Microsoft created a highly integrated suite of products that had a similar look and feel and they got the job done. The original license terms were attractive for businesses. The license was based on concurrent usage. Companies could install a server copy and they only had to pay for the maximum number of copies of the software that were in use simultaneously. By the time Microsoft eliminated the concurrent licensing, their software was well entrenched in the business mainstream." (http://freebies.about.com/cs/freesoftware/a/office.htm)

Back-in-the-days just doesn't cut it anymore, Microsoft. What have you done for me lately?

Get real. Not all of Microsoft's growth problems are due to piracy.

I have Office, but I took it OFF of the PC's in my network. I find MSWord to be infuriating and anachronistic, so I purchased WordPerfect, instead. For everything else, there's OpenOffice. The risks from not having the most current Office update, because I did did not know to look for it, and the hassles of dealing with inputing the CD's and license number each time I did update it, were unacceptable. Granted, OpenOffice does not automatically update, either, but it does show an icon on the toolbar to let me know when an update is available. In less time than it would take me to let Microsoft check one computer for needed Office updates, I can download a copy of not just a security update, but the very latest and greatest complete version of OpenOffice to my server. From there, I can legally install it to any computer I wish, without having to prove my right to do so.

Incidentally, Andre Da Costa, in spite of what you think about us, most OpenOffice users are more than smart enough to know that Microsoft Office is not free (neither in the sense of "free beer" nor of "freedom"). We have heard about OpenOffice, investigated it, downloaded it quite intentionally (thank you very much!), installed it, and stuck with it. The only accidental users I know of are those with OEM copies of Office!

Another explanation for the disparity of Office sales between PC and Mac users has not been mentioned: Most PC users who WANT Office already have it, but it has only recently become available for Mac. Another possibility is that Mac users have yet to learn what some long-time Office users have already learned. There are a lot of current and former Office users who would agree with the following sentiments:

"How did such expensive and bug ridden software get to be the standard office productivity suite? Microsoft accomplished something that had eluded other software providers. Microsoft created a highly integrated suite of products that had a similar look and feel and they got the job done. The original license terms were attractive for businesses. The license was based on concurrent usage. Companies could install a server copy and they only had to pay for the maximum number of copies of the software that were in use simultaneously. By the time Microsoft eliminated the concurrent licensing, their software was well entrenched in the business mainstream." (http://freebies.about.com/cs/freesoftware/a/office.htm)

Back-in-the-days just doesn't cut it anymore, Microsoft. What have you done for me lately?

Nice job on sensationalizing.

Honestly do you think MS is into creating barrier for ligitement liscenses? If you knew enough to be an expert you would know quite a number of MS employees use Macs loaded with MS OS for their work.

Afterall microsoft isnt in the PC business they are in the OS business. So I think they could care less who the OEM or end user buys their hardware from.

So stop trying to hype up a non story.

Gerado, Jayzee is right, the piracy rate for Office is very high, approximately 200 million. Its no different with the 2007 release too. I have seen some persons who I know are not working in certain environments running Office 2007 Enterprise edition. Which is only available under VLK.

Just want to correct your history slightly. Word was a DOS program prior to either Mac or later Windows version. But both Excel and Powerpoint started on the Mac.