Who's Afraid of Open-Source Office?
Mark Long, newsfactor.com Mon Nov 28, 4:23 PM ET
For the past 20 years Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT - news) has been pushing its Office productivity suite, which is a major reason why it has become so entrenched in the business environment. Each time an alternative has shown up, the software giant typically has adapted to these competitive threats by shifting its focus with ease.
However, with Massachusetts ousting Microsoft Office and governments around the world moving to open-source software, is the threat posed by open-source alternatives, such as OpenOffice and Sun's Star Office, becoming more serious? And should Microsoft be concerned?
"I think Microsoft is doing what any company in its position or in a similar position would do; when seeing competition, you are going to react to it," said Yankee Group senior analyst Laura DiDio. "But I don't think Microsoft is running scared. They are running smart, and they are right to be concerned."
One major Microsoft worry comes in the form of the latest report on open source from Forrester Research, which indicates that open-source software registered high marks among the 128 large North American enterprises that the firm surveyed in early 2005.
A total of 56 percent of the respondents said they already had tried open-source software and most were highly satisfied with the results. Moreover, an additional 19 percent of the survey's respondents said they intend to use open-source software at some point in the future. In fact, Forrester said that the 26 percent of companies with no plans to use Linux or open source are now the exception.
Forrester senior analyst Michael Goulde thinks customers have higher expectations for Microsoft products, so it's harder for the software giant to score well on customer-satisfaction surveys. "Open source today is expected to be 'good enough,' and, most of the time, open-source products meet that expectation or exceed it," Goulde said. "When you're paying as much as you pay for Microsoft, by comparison, you expect a lot more than good enough."
Overcoming Inertia
In theory, one might expect the free OpenOffice and low-cost Star Office to be taking major bites out of Microsoft's market share. But Forrester's survey indicates just 13 percent of the enterprises polled said they were using OpenOffice, and only another 7 percent said they would be using OpenOffice in the future.
Goulde thinks he knows the reason behind the lack of traction for open-source alternatives to Microsoft Office. "Moving any significant portion of the Microsoft Office base toward OpenOffice is nearly impossible because of user inertia that stems from reluctance to change and reluctance to learn something new," Goulde observed. "OpenOffice would have to require virtually no retraining, be 100 percent keystroke compatible, be 100 percent file format compatible, and would have to be compatible with the features any particular customer uses."
The problem is that, although no one uses all the features that are available in Microsoft Office, everyone uses a slightly different subset, Goulde said. "That makes it hard for OpenOffice to target the right set of features."
At this point, said DiDio, the organizations achieving the greatest total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI) with open source are those that have done their due diligence, understand the requirements and costs involved, and can do a lot of their own management and remediation without relying on other organizations for technical service and support.
For his part, Goulde believes that businesses should not hesitate to bring in Linux or open-source software if it meets their needs. But companies will need to invest the time and resources to learn about open-source software. The familiarity that many business workers already have with Microsoft products proves to be a major selling point.
