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Friday, January 27, 2006
Number two sales rank?
Or, much to do about nothing. Earlier this week, Cnet reported in, Apple's iWork emerges as rival to Microsoft Office:
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.
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.
I was going to let this one slide by without commenting. But, since there was so much buzz, and glee, about it this week, I think it bears raising a few questions. At the very least:
One, Is the Apple iWork program truly comparable to WordPerfect Office or Microsoft Office? Not to knock Apple, but isn't it true that even the word processor is a bit of a disappointment, as far as word processors go.
Two, when talking about Corel's sales figures in relation to other software companies' sales figures, will somebody please figure in the hit Microsoft has taken in lost sales of its own office suite? And not just because of competition. Isn't it true that MS Office users aren't upgrading like they used to? Does that make any sense?
In the meantime, and a better reason to mention the article, Joe Wilson of Jupiter Research has done a proper dressing down of the C-Net article (Sigh. More Bad Tech Reporting):
[...] CNET News.com ran an outrageous story suggesting that Apple's iWork had eclipsed Corel WordPerfect sales and that, according to the headline, "Apple's iWork emerges as rival to Microsoft Office.” Wrong on both assertions.
[...]
The data used to state CNET News.com's position is limited to a single sales channel. Corel launched a second WordPerfect Office 12 suite in 2005, putting greater emphasis on smaller businesses. Along with the repositioning, Corel widened the number of sales channels for WordPerfect Office. The software is available in many different channels, including retail, new PCs, online catalog stores like PC Connection and local resellers, among others. I wouldn't be shocked if WordPerfect sales shifted among those channels, but that isn't the same as a decrease in sales. Similarly, the story doesn't offer iWork sell-through data on these other channels, so there is little more than a partial sales comparison for the two products. I should note that Corel's sale to one customer – 50,000 units to the US Justice Department – is, based on figures cite by CNET News.com, nearly as much as iWork retail sales for all of 2005. (Links omitted.)
It sounds like C-Net jumped on one part of the data and used it to paint a picture that depicts one product as the leader over another, when, in fact, that's not at all the reality.
Joe goes on to answer my first question:
Contrary to CNET News.com's position, iWork isn't an Office suite. It's even a stretch to call the software, which contains two programs, a Works package on par with Microsoft Works. Any iWork comparison to Microsoft Office or WordPerfect Office is an apples-to-oranges comparison, at best.
There's much more to the article, but he concludes with:
I rally to Corel's defense because this CNET News.com story is spreading, across blogsites and other news sites. There was too much bad technology reporting in 2005. There's no reason 2006 has to be the same way.
How could C-Net so obviously slant their reporting? Or, why? The answers are left to our imagination.
This is a bit unrelated, but, now might be a good time for Corel to start making WordPerfect for Mac. I often hear Mac users lamenting the fact that they can't get a current version of WordPerfect. How about it, Corel?
• Posted by: Marie Carnes at 12:54 AM
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