Letters To The Editor: Musings From The Office Market

1. Microsoft Replies To Our Market Break Speculations  
   
   

2. More On Backward Compatibility  
   
   

3. How Do You Tell The Amateurs From The Pros?

Microsoft Replies To Our Market Break Speculations

Microsoft, as you might guess, wondered why we were writing about the potential for a market break in the Office Suite market.  We had an interesting conversation with Office Suite Product Manager Nicole von Kaenel that seems worth sharing.

First, it’s important to be clear on the fact that I wasn’t PREDICTING a market break but rather SPECULATING about the possibility of one, based on the fact that I had noticed the confluence of Microsoft’s change in licensing policy (and corporate buyer’s lack of enthusiasm for it), the state of the economy and its effect on IT budgets, and the interest in open source products (and, therefore, their increasing availability). Note that I wouldn’t think any one of those things could create a market break; it was the combination that I thought was worth noting.

Nicole brought up a point I hadn’t thought of:  Microsoft’s biggest competitor in the Office Suite market is – Microsoft.  That is, one reason people aren’t in a rush to upgrade is that they’re perfectly happy with the product they already have.  One way that Microsoft can change the market reaction – and head off any chance of a market break – would be to demonstrate a strong value proposition to customers for the new version of the Office Suite and the new licensing deal.

This will be the trick, of course.

	I suspect that’s what they’ll do, but I think they may have to sweeten the pot by either making the price better or offering something very appealing -- not to users – who aren’t the ones making the corporate buying decisions – but rather to corporate buyers.
	And Microsoft will need to do this without making it interesting for these buyers to look at alternative solutions or some of them, inevitably, will pick something else.

But Microsoft is good at turning on a dime and figuring out – at last – what it needs to do to satisfy customers, so I wouldn’t count on them not doing it one more time in the Office Suite market.

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More On Backward Compatibility

Several subscribers wrote in to tell us that when you’re thinking about the issues surrounding backward compatibility, as subscriber Charlie Hall did, a good point of view is in Joel's Strategy Letter III, Let Me Go Back, www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000052.html. This site (which is excellent) was recommended by both John Roberts and Steve Vore.

The article is all about how to attract users to a new piece of software by eliminating barriers.  That’s true whether you’re a new vendor or the same vendor trying to get people to upgrade to a new version.  This article is definitely worth reading.  

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How Do You Tell The Amateurs From The Pros?

When we were putting together the logistics for the User Survey we wrote about in this issue, we tried to think about how to insure that as many people as possible filled it in.  This is especially important when you’re addressing a small number of high value participants and each answer is valuable.

We knew the answer was to offer bribes.  The traditional bribes in our industry are t-shirts, baseball caps and free software.  The latter seemed appropriate here.

We approached three vendors, all of whom SELL their software in competition to Microsoft Office (more or less) and asked them how they felt about letting us have enough copies to give each survey participant a CD.  Two of the vendors asked “How many do you need?” and “Where should I send them?”  The third vendor said, “We sell our software now and we don’t give it away for free.”

But a version of their software is given away for free by their sister (brother?) organization, which works on its open source code.  So we (without much hope) called this volunteer organization and asked if there was any way other than on-line downloads to get copies of the software.  These volunteers (who are, by definition, amateurs at distributing software), stepped very professionally right up to the plate and said “How many?” and “Where?”  Needless to say, it was their software that went to the survey participants – and it might be their software that these participants decide to use if they like it.

We’re wondering what new test we should use to tell the difference between amateurs and professionals.  It obviously isn’t who sells the software and who gives it away.

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