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iWork Grabs Number 2 Office Suite Spot

iWork Grabs Number 2 Office Suite Spot

by , 11:50 AM EST, January 24th, 2006

Although it comes in at a distant second, Apple's iWork took the number two office suite position away from Corel WordPerfect in 2005, according to CNET. iWork inched up over WordPerfect's 1.6 percent market share at 2.7 percent. In comparison, Microsoft Office holds the top position with 95 percent of the market.

Despite the fact that Apple has been fairly low key about iWork over the past year, it still came in with 17.4 percent of the Mac market, compared to Office for the Mac's 82 percent.

Microsoft, however, does have the upper hand in this battle, since Office is available for both Mac and Windows platforms, while iWork is available only for the Mac. Wordperfect is available only for Windows.

Office includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage. iWork includes a smaller set of applications: Keynote, a presentation application that's similar to PowerPoint; and Pages, a kind of hybrid between applications like Word, and page layout applications like PageMaker.

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Close Name:Biff Posts: 1479 Joined: 08 Apr 2004
Tue Jan 24, 2006 2:37 pm Subject:

Ok I'm not sure if I'm doing this right. So if 17.4% of the Mac market translates into 2.7% of the overall market, does that mean about 15% of the overall market is made up of Mac users?


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Close Name:Guest
Tue Jan 24, 2006 2:48 pm Subject: correct!

Quote
Biff wrote:
Ok I'm not sure if I'm doing this right. So if 17.4% of the Mac market translates into 2.7% of the overall market, does that mean about 15% of the overall market is made up of Mac users?


Your math and logic is correct, there is an obvious error in this reporting or the study!


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Close Name:Guest
Tue Jan 24, 2006 2:57 pm Subject: error...

There doesn't have to be an error... If say 70% of Macs have an office suite and only 30% or PCs do. The percentages in the article are not computer market percentages, they are office suite percentages.


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Close Name:Tiger Posts: 1018 Joined: 17 Jun 2003
Tue Jan 24, 2006 3:05 pm Subject: which goes to show

there are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

As a long suffering user of MSOffice, I'd love to see Apple make a version of iWork for PC users.

And to do it well!


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Close Name:mrmgraphics Posts: 825 Joined: 05 Sep 2003
Tue Jan 24, 2006 4:04 pm Subject: Compatibility

+

FWIW, I regularly use Office: Mac in a corporate environment, where not a day goes by that I don't despise using Word. Excel's a good program, IMHO, and PowerPoint...well, it's PowerPoint, what can you say. But Word is the most frustrating of all elements of M$ Office for always assuming it knows what I want it to do (and never getting it right). I'd love a Word alternative, but what's the compatibility like between iWork and M$ Office on Windows? If I can't share 100% of all word processing documents, then I'll still need to stick with Word.


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Close Name:Biff Posts: 1479 Joined: 08 Apr 2004
Tue Jan 24, 2006 5:23 pm Subject:

Quote
Guest wrote:
Quote
Biff wrote:
Ok I'm not sure if I'm doing this right. So if 17.4% of the Mac market translates into 2.7% of the overall market, does that mean about 15% of the overall market is made up of Mac users?


Your math and logic is correct, there is an obvious error in this reporting or the study!
Well glad I got one calculation right today. Not sure this indicates an error in the study. Remember PC market share includes things such as point of sale systems and el cheapo Walmart PCs. These most likely will never have a copy of office installed on them. At least not a purchased copy. It seems reasonable that a much higher percentage of Apple CPU's sold might see a purchase of an Office suite.


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Close Name:JulesLt Posts: 136 Joined: 06 Jul 2005
Tue Jan 24, 2006 5:30 pm Subject: Sales

I notice it's based on sales, not usage - so Mac users may have been busy buying iWork last year, as it's new or just to upgrade Keynote, while Office sales are declining as it heads towards the end of it's upgrade cycle. (It wasn't a particularly successful release by MS standards either - businesses seem to be sticking with the pre-XP version - 2001?2003??)


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Close Name:Al Swearengen Posts: 339 Joined: 10 May 2005
Tue Jan 24, 2006 7:26 pm Subject: Concour

Excel has a few quirks, but overall it is good, I use it to keep my accounts and expenditures, also to create some templates for clients. Word drives me nuts and I mostly just use it to receive files from clients. I guess that they are yin and yang of Office.

PowerPoint I don't use and I prefer Mail over Entourage.

I use InDesign for page layout, but I will have to take a look at iWork .

Quote
mrmgraphics wrote:
+

FWIW, I regularly use Office: Mac in a corporate environment, where not a day goes by that I don't despise using Word. Excel's a good program, IMHO, and PowerPoint...well, it's PowerPoint, what can you say. But Word is the most frustrating of all elements of M$ Office for always assuming it knows what I want it to do (and never getting it right). I'd love a Word alternative, but what's the compatibility like between iWork and M$ Office on Windows? If I can't share 100% of all word processing documents, then I'll still need to stick with Word.


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Close Name:Guest
Tue Jan 24, 2006 11:39 pm Subject: Appleworks still better

iWork is ok, but it doesn't have a database! I have run my business on Appleworks since there was an Appleworks on the //e! Without a database, an office suite is pretty much useless to me.


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Close Name:Guest
Thu Jan 26, 2006 11:02 am Subject: Wordperfect for Mac 3.5e
Close Name:treehouse1 Posts: 7 Joined: 27 May 2004
Thu Jan 26, 2006 11:04 am Subject: Wordperfect for Mac 3.5e
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