Office 2010 Will Continue to Succeed with Consumers, Says Forrester

With Microsoft on the verge of launching the next generation of its most ubiquitous consumer client offering for Windows, analyst firm Forrester predicts clear skies ahead for the successor of Office 2007. According to Forrester’s JP Gownder, Office 2010 will continue to succeed with consumers. Having been released to manufacturing in April 2010, and offered to businesses worldwide as of May, Office 2010 is scheduled to hit General Availability tomorrow, June 15th.

“Office 2010, Microsoft’s latest release, will continue to succeed with consumers. On the shoulders of Office 2010 rests nothing less than the defense of packaged software in general. It’s also the most tangible example of Microsoft’s Software Plus Services approach to the cloud – a term that Microsoft seems to be de-emphasizing lately, but which captures the essence of the Office 2010 business goal: To sell packaged client software and offer Web-based services to augment the experience,” Gownder stated.

Fact is that Microsoft has already launched the “services” part of the S+S when it comes down to Office 2010. Office Web Apps went live on Windows Live SkyDrive the past week, and is already available to customers around the world. As previously revealed, Office Web Apps is not a replacement for Office 2010, but a Cloud offering designed to augment the client.

“Office Web Apps are designed explicitly to help consumers leverage the power of ‘the cloud’ (a term consumers don’t use) while also not cannibalizing sales of the client program. Invariably, some reviews will compare Google Docs and Office Web Apps head to head as if they were meant to be comparable offerings. This is a mistake. Office Web Apps are a complement to the client program, more of a feature than a standalone competitor to Google Docs,” Gownder noted.

According to Forrester, users have not really warmed up to Google Docs. Even with the costs implied by Office, customers still opt to use Microsoft’s productivity suite rather than Google’s free alternative. Moreover, Gownder opined that users would rather run pirated copies of Office than choose Google Docs.

“In terms of usage and penetration, Google Docs remains a failure – so far, anyway.Only 4% of U.S. online consumers say they regularly use Google Docs, according to Forrester’s Consumer Technographics PC and Gaming survey. Let’s think about that for a second: We’re talking about a free software-as-a-service offering from one of the top brand names in technology. The offering has been available for over three years from Google (and two more years if you count Writely before Google purchased Upstartle). And yet only 4% of consumers are onboard,” he stated.

To conclude, Gownder offered a total of four reasons why Microsoft’s Office 2010 would be a success, carrying forward the legacy of the company’s productivity suite. He underlined that customers had a deep connection with the Office product, that Office 2010 incorporated a great deal of customer feedback, that Office Web Apps offered compelling collaboration and sharing capabilities, and that the suite would, of course, ship pre-loaded on a range of new OEM machines.