Press and Media

H L Van Arnem - CEO
sales@money.net

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Firms Working Without Microsoft Office Find Economical Online Alternatives To Microsoft's Standard Program

Manhattan-based Money.netprovides 30,000 active users, including large institutions, with real-time stock quotes, company news and portfolio tracking over the Web. It takes a staff of 30 to provide the service. Surprisingly, none of them have any software on their computers. Instead, the entire staff logs on to Google Apps and uses its productivity suite, including Gmail, Talk, Calendar and Docs.

"Microsoft Office products are much more expensive," says H.L. Van Arnem, Money.net's chief executive. "A lot of our employees already used Gmail, so it was very easy to roll out."

An alternativeacross town, Web development firm Digital202 is also going Microsoft-free. The company is using an office productivity suite from OpenOffice.org, an open-source software project backed by Sun Microsystems. These two small firms are among a growing list of companies that are looking for - and finding - alternatives to Microsoft's ubiquitous Office program. Other offerings include those from OpenOffice.org to IBM's pending Lotus Symphony programs. All are available on the Web for free and together have a tiny fraction - less than 10%, according to Gartner Inc. - of Microsoft Office's market share. "The lion's share of people are going to keep using Microsoft Office products," says Melissa Webster, a vice president of content and digital media at market research firm IDC. "Microsoft Office has heavy-duty power tools that can build anything you want and has more features than the average user can even find."

"Microsoft Office continues to be the overwhelming choice for a range of organizations and individuals, primarily due to its usability, functionality and longstanding leadership in the category," says a Microsoft spokesman. "Office has changed as people's work has changed. "The rub, of course, is that Microsoft Office Small Business 2007 retails for $449.95. Even an upgrade to that version from an earlier Windows model runs to $279.95.

Cheaper options that contrastssharply with products like Google Apps, IBM's Lotus Symphony and Sun's StarOffice, which are free or come with a nominal price tag. With Google Apps, for example, users pay only a $50 fee if they want to upgrade to the Premier version. But for older companies that have already invested in Windows, there is no compelling reason to change, especially as Microsoft continues to upgrade its flagship, most recently with the launch of Vista last year. But for fledgling firms, the temptation of increasingly sophisticated and totally free software suites will probably be too great to pass up.

"Buying office software is like buying paper for your photocopier," says John McCreesh, marketing project head at OpenOffice.org. Everyone relies on it, but there is no real competitive advantage to be gained. That is why, as he puts it, "businesses go for something that does the job at the keenest price."

Suite deal for many these days, that means Google, which launched its suite in February 2007 and now claims more than 500,000 business users. Google Apps includes Gmail, Talk, Calendar and Docs - all of which are online and store data virtually.

Money.net's Mr. Van Arnem notes that the rollout was painless. "And since it's Web-based, people are sharing documents, presentations and calendars," he says.

OpenOffice has a longer lineage. Launched in May 2002, the software suite has recorded more than 100 million downloads and includes a word processing program, a spreadsheet program, presentation tools, a graphics program and a database. "We've had people use it and not even know they are using it because the features are all there," says Benjamin Horst, a senior project manager for Digital202. "And it has some components that you won't get with Office unless you paid extra."

IBM's Lotus Symphony, the latest product to the market, has yet to launch officially - the beta version bowed in September - but has clocked more than 400,000 downloads and won the title of 2008 Office Productivity Software Product of the Year from Datamation magazine for its combination of programs and its ability to transform static documents to dynamic tools using Web 2.0 technologies.