“Corel bills its WordPerfect Office software as ‘the world’s leading alternative to Microsoft Office.’ But when it comes to U.S. retail sales, Corel lost the No. 2 spot in 2005 to a somewhat unlikely competitor: Apple Computer’s iWork,” Ina Fried reports for CNET News.com
“According to market researcher NPD, Apple grabbed a 2.7 percent unit share, while Corel had a 1.6 percent share. Microsoft maintained its dominance with nearly 95 percent of unit sales,” Fried reports. “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,’ he said. Looking at the Mac platform alone, iWork accounted for 17.4 percent, 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.”
Fried reports, “There had been reports, apparently incorrect, on some Apple enthusiast sites that sales of the initial iWork software had lagged. ‘One rumor that can be put to rest is that iWork wasn’t selling well,’ Swenson said.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple debuted iWork (comprised of Pages and Keynote) just over a year ago at Macworld Expo on January 11, 2005.
Advertisement: iWork’06. Create, present and publish your work in style. $79. Free shipping.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Washington Times: Apple’s iWork should make Microsoft’s Bill Gates a ‘bit uncomfortable’ – January 18, 2005
Apple announces iWork ’06 with 3-D charts, advanced image editing tools & spreadsheet-like tables – January 10, 2006
Apple unveils iWork ’05 productivity software, introduces a new word processor ‘Pages’ – January 11, 2005
Mac users should not buy Microsoft software (or hardware) – May 16, 2003
17% a year, only 5 years more years til total dominance on the Mac.
I’m sorry…my math may be bad here, but how does 17.4% of Mac users (around 4.5%???) come out to 2.7% of the entire “office suite” ecosystem? What am I missing?
All I can think of is that the percentage of Mac users vs. Windows users upgrading to a real office suite is severely disproportionate. Could it be that much different between the two platforms?
Never mind…I now see that the article is only referring to retail sales…which really screws things up. These numbers mean nothing.
Remember that the 4.5% market share of Mac includes all of the Windows machines that are used for cash registers, phone systems, servers, game machines, bookends, doorstops, etc. Most people do not buy Microsoft Office to run on these type of machines. Plus I remember Microsoft acknowledging that Mac users are more likely to purchase an office software solution then the average Windows user.
Is there gonna be a spreadsheet added anytime soon to iWork? Anybody heard?
That’s great. I really like Pages. I never use Word anymore. And Keynote is great too, but unfortunately I don’t have much occasion to use it. I wish I did.
If there were going to be a spreadsheet (who uses that archaic device?), it would have been in ’06. I guess you’ll have to wait until ’07!
I’m telling you Apple could create a Office Suite that would blow Microsoft off our platform and thiers in a under 5 years.
Apple has a heck of a nuclear bomb at it’s disposal and Bill Gates knows it.
Actually I don’t think he really cares with all the money he’s got.
I just have to add: I really miss the Mac version of Wordperfect. It was my favorite wordprocessor because it had the flexibility of the DOS version with the Mac interface. I wish they would update it and bring it back.
remember that’s with just pages and keynote. when numbers(spreadsheet app which will be sick) comes out in jan 07 then it’s over.
MB: “If there were going to be a spreadsheet (who uses that archaic device?)”
Archaic? As in, superseded by what? I don’t know of anything that compares for the calculating power combined with ease of use (far easier than doing the same with databases). Excel is my second favorite Office application, after Outlook/Entourage. Word is OK. Hate everything else.
Actually, I understand that Keynote and/or Pages in iWork 06 have very elementary cell math functions. So with time, maybe something more robust will be added.
It has been years since I have LOOKED at Corel’s office alternative but _whoa_ I didn’t realize they had such a small share of the market! iWork doesn’t even have an Excel alternative or a DBMS (yeah, I saw iWork ’06 now has basic calculations for tables – NOT THE SAME THING).
I see this as less of impressive news for iWorks as it is depressing news for Corel!
Core Duo’s have bugs!
disclaimer: all processors have bugs except these new processors seem to have more than normal.
http://www.macobserver.com/article/2006/01/23.6.shtml
I was shocked to see this article so prominent on ZDNEWS web site……”ya hear that ‘lizabeth, I’m comin’ to join ya honey”
(Fred Sanford grabbing his chest mimicking a heart attack after hearing shocking news).
http://news.zdnet.com/2001-1_22.html?legacy=zdnn
An absolute funny graphic of Steve Jobs.
Had to share it!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10966807/site/newsweek/
‘Fired reports, “There had been reports…’
It doesn’t matter what you think CNET should do to her — her name is still spelled ‘Fried’.
WordPerfect Suite is bundled with a lot of PCs.
Dab2- you forgot boat anchors!!!
I have been using the iWork trial and waited until iWork ’06 to purchase. Unfortunately, I can barely tell any difference. It doesn’t quite merit a full version upgrade.
Keynote is a fantastic program – way ahead of Powerpoint. I give many presentations and whenever I can use Keynote I get many compliments from audience members about how beautiful the slides look. And I only use plain white backgrounds… The text, drawings, everything looks better in Keynote, and makes a great impression on the audience.
However, I find Pages 2 a bit disappointing. It lacks real scripting (Apple Events, Automator) support, so external programs can’t modify the files. That means that bibliography programs (e.g. EndNote, BookEnds) can’t interact with Pages. Pages also desperately needs an outlining function.
Of the two iWork programs, Keynote is a fabulous Powerpoint replacement. Although Pages beats Word at some things, such as page layout and themes, it lacks the serious features like scripting, bibliography support and outlining that will be necessary for it to replace Word.
Excel is a great program… I don’t know how Apple could beat it.
Gotta love those subtle jabs at Apple products.
It’s only “unlikely” if a word processor designed FROM SCRATCH FOR CONSUMERS is a crazy idea.
But it’s a good idea. Academic papers and business letters aren’t the only things you can do with a word processor.
Even if the numbers were true, WHO THE HELL CARES ABOUT COREL?
Ditto abqMac….
Keynote is fantastic. I have Pages but have never used it. All my clients are PC using corporations and anything that needs a layout goes through InDesign.
I worked on a Keynote presentation today. Built over 260 slides in about three hours using iPhoto and the media browser to drag photos onto the pages. Amazing productivity.
Using Keynote 3 I even exported files to PowerPoint and they came out perfect! Way better than the previous version’s PowerPoint exports. On top of that, I exported to Quicktime and used Quicktime Pro to export to iPod and my presentation runs beautifully on my 30 gig iPod Video.
Nice!
Then why the anemic updates to iWork?
iWork needs to be the pro-sumer level office suite. Add the 20-30 features missing in Pages, the 10 or so missing features to Keynote, and add a rock solid spreadsheet.
Make the output truly xls or doc compatible, and their done. My company would buy 150 licenses of iWork if Apple did that, instead of the 5-10 we buy now.
I’d rather Apple got our annual upgrade dollars over MS.