Study: OpenOffice five times more popular than Google Docs
But both still lag behind Microsoft, which hopes to cement its lead with Office Web
But both still lag behind Microsoft, which hopes to cement its lead with Office Web
November 14, 2008 (Computerworld) Confirming recent comments by Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer, an independent study released Friday found OpenOffice.org's free office suite to be five times more popular among adult U.S. internet users than Google Docs.
Microsoft Office remains dominant, with 51% of American internet users over age 18 using it, according to a 6-month study conducted by market researcher ClickStream Technologies.
OpenOffice.org was used by 5% of people, versus Google Docs' 1%, according to the survey of 2,400 users on their home PCs conducted between May and November of this year. OpenOffice.org was also found to be used more often, 8.7 days, versus 1.5 days; and longer, an average of 9.3 minutes, versus 3.4 minutes for Google Docs, according to ClickStream's panel, of which two-thirds was comprised of women.
During a keynote speech at a Gartner Inc. conference last month, Ballmer said: "We have better competition today than Google Docs and Spreadsheets. We get more competition from OpenOffice and StarOffice, frankly."
Microsoft hopes to cement that domination with its upcoming Office Web, as well as online versions of its Exchange and SharePoint products to be announced on Monday.
OpenOffice.org may provide some resistance, however. The latest version, OpenOffice.org 3.0, had a strong first week in October, with more than 3 million downloads. After one month, OpenOffice.org 3.0 had been downloaded 10 million times, the group said.
ClickStream also found that 68% of Google Docs or Spreadsheets users also used Microsoft Word at least once, "indicating that Google Docs has yet to be considered a stand-alone product by most of its users."
In contrast, 74% of OpenOffice users didn't use Word at all.
"Although Google Docs and Spreadsheets has been touted as a potential competitor to the Microsoft Office Suite, OpenOffice is currently the more likely app to take that position, possibly indicating the value of offline and local processing enabled by installed applications," said ClickStream.
A Google spokesman said in response to ClickStream's finding, "Google Docs has millions of active users and hosts tens of millions of documents. It has seen strong and steady growth since it launched two years ago as people have increasingly shifted to the cloud in order to access and collaborate on documents online."
ClickStream's figures are not surprising. A NPD Group Inc. survey reported similar findings last year.
But the ClickStream findings may arouse some skepticism. The company's CEO, Cameron Turner, formerly worked at Microsoft doing similar market research on Microsoft Office and its competitors.
Turner said ClickStream was not paid by Microsoft to conduct this study.
He added that ClickStream does paid research projects for a number of software vendors, including Microsoft and a major competitor, Adobe Systems Inc. It also monitors the use of Mac and Linux software.
According to ClickStream's findings, Google Docs was even less popular than Corel Corp.'s WordPerfect suite.
Version 12 of WordPerfect alone was used by 3% of users, according to ClickStream's panel, which includes users recruited through cash and prizes, making it the third most popular productivity application behind OpenOffice.org. Adding up versions 9 through 13 of WordPerfect gave it a total usage of 6%, though ClickStream said the likelihood of overlap meant that its actual share was still lower than that of OpenOffice.org.
ClickStream's figures for OpenOffice.org include usage of StarOffice, a near-identical version that is sold for $70 and officially supported by Sun Microsystems Inc. Google began distributing StarOffice via its free Google Pack download service in August 2007.
But it recently pulled StarOffice from Google Pack, suggesting that Google is starting to feel competitive with OpenOffice.org.
Not so, says Google. "We are constantly evaluating which products to include in Google Pack to make it more valuable to users. At this time the agreement to distribute StarOffice through Google Pack has expired, and we have decided with Sun not to renew the agreement," a spokesman said.
Other free Microsoft word processers are actually far more popular than OpenOffice.org or Google Docs. Notepad was used by 48% of those surveyed by ClickStream, though more sparingly than OpenOffice.org. WordPad, meanwhile, was used by 21% of apparently thrifty users.
Fewer than 1% of users used Zoho Office, while none of ClickStream's sample used ThinkFree or WriteBoard.
Microsoft Office remains dominant, with 51% of American internet users over age 18 using it, according to a 6-month study conducted by market researcher ClickStream Technologies.
OpenOffice.org was used by 5% of people, versus Google Docs' 1%, according to the survey of 2,400 users on their home PCs conducted between May and November of this year. OpenOffice.org was also found to be used more often, 8.7 days, versus 1.5 days; and longer, an average of 9.3 minutes, versus 3.4 minutes for Google Docs, according to ClickStream's panel, of which two-thirds was comprised of women.
During a keynote speech at a Gartner Inc. conference last month, Ballmer said: "We have better competition today than Google Docs and Spreadsheets. We get more competition from OpenOffice and StarOffice, frankly."
Microsoft hopes to cement that domination with its upcoming Office Web, as well as online versions of its Exchange and SharePoint products to be announced on Monday.
OpenOffice.org may provide some resistance, however. The latest version, OpenOffice.org 3.0, had a strong first week in October, with more than 3 million downloads. After one month, OpenOffice.org 3.0 had been downloaded 10 million times, the group said.
ClickStream also found that 68% of Google Docs or Spreadsheets users also used Microsoft Word at least once, "indicating that Google Docs has yet to be considered a stand-alone product by most of its users."
In contrast, 74% of OpenOffice users didn't use Word at all.
"Although Google Docs and Spreadsheets has been touted as a potential competitor to the Microsoft Office Suite, OpenOffice is currently the more likely app to take that position, possibly indicating the value of offline and local processing enabled by installed applications," said ClickStream.
A Google spokesman said in response to ClickStream's finding, "Google Docs has millions of active users and hosts tens of millions of documents. It has seen strong and steady growth since it launched two years ago as people have increasingly shifted to the cloud in order to access and collaborate on documents online."
ClickStream's figures are not surprising. A NPD Group Inc. survey reported similar findings last year.
But the ClickStream findings may arouse some skepticism. The company's CEO, Cameron Turner, formerly worked at Microsoft doing similar market research on Microsoft Office and its competitors.
Turner said ClickStream was not paid by Microsoft to conduct this study.
He added that ClickStream does paid research projects for a number of software vendors, including Microsoft and a major competitor, Adobe Systems Inc. It also monitors the use of Mac and Linux software.
According to ClickStream's findings, Google Docs was even less popular than Corel Corp.'s WordPerfect suite.
Version 12 of WordPerfect alone was used by 3% of users, according to ClickStream's panel, which includes users recruited through cash and prizes, making it the third most popular productivity application behind OpenOffice.org. Adding up versions 9 through 13 of WordPerfect gave it a total usage of 6%, though ClickStream said the likelihood of overlap meant that its actual share was still lower than that of OpenOffice.org.
ClickStream's figures for OpenOffice.org include usage of StarOffice, a near-identical version that is sold for $70 and officially supported by Sun Microsystems Inc. Google began distributing StarOffice via its free Google Pack download service in August 2007.
But it recently pulled StarOffice from Google Pack, suggesting that Google is starting to feel competitive with OpenOffice.org.
Not so, says Google. "We are constantly evaluating which products to include in Google Pack to make it more valuable to users. At this time the agreement to distribute StarOffice through Google Pack has expired, and we have decided with Sun not to renew the agreement," a spokesman said.
Other free Microsoft word processers are actually far more popular than OpenOffice.org or Google Docs. Notepad was used by 48% of those surveyed by ClickStream, though more sparingly than OpenOffice.org. WordPad, meanwhile, was used by 21% of apparently thrifty users.
Fewer than 1% of users used Zoho Office, while none of ClickStream's sample used ThinkFree or WriteBoard.
