My friends over at BetterCloud, which provides Google Apps dashboard and management services, just finished surveying over 18,000 admins. These admins are obviously in a good position to watch the battling between Microsoft and Google for the word processing and spreadsheet souls of cube dwellers. After quickly looking through the survey results, I came up with a revealing stat that backs up a gut feeling I’ve had for awhile: Office is starting to wane.
In my marketing for clients I’ve been seeing Google Apps enter into more conversations in the last few year–i.e., we need to integrate Apps or Google Chat with some existing service. I’ve noticed this mostly, but not exclusively, in educational organizations–especially universities.
So the revealing stat that BetterCloud came up with is that 60% of organizations surveyed said they will be minimizing their investments in MS Office–less licenses and fewer upgrades. The stat seems to carry through regardless of company size, and interestingly with larger organizations trending above the 60% mark.
Unfortunately, there’s no breakdown in the survey based on industry sectors–darn! While not everyone will be sold on Google Apps–refer to Oxford University’s ban of Google Docs–this is still a significant sign that changes are afoot.