Google Docs Begins To Threaten Microsoft Office Dominance

According to IDC, the almost total dominance of Microsoft Office in the workplace could be in jeopardy because a new rival is emerging strongly. IDC has published a study stating that almost one in five companies already "broadly" uses Google Docs in their working environment. However, there is a nuance. In many cases they may be using Google Docs in addition to Microsoft Office, reports CIO Espana.

IDC has prepared its report based on survey of 262 people. Significant number of these people are in senior positions in their companies and are responsible for most senior business decisions. In these interviews they reflected the growing interest in office applications based on Google's cloud.

In a similar study related to it and produced by IDG in December 2007, it was reported that 5 percent of the respondents said that Google Docs was widely used at their companies. Now, IDC in a more recent study extended this use to say that 19.5 percent of companies surveyed use Google Docs.

"Still not surpassing Microsoft Office, but the fact that Google Docs is being adopted so quickly shows an inflection point and that this is a major future threat to Microsoft," explained Melissa Webster, analyst IDC commissioned the report.

Besides the growth of Google Docs, the use of Microsoft Office in the work environment has remained virtually unchanged shows the study. Just the thought of this growing threat is enough for the Microsoft users to negotiate a better deal when upgrading Microsoft Office.

About 97 percent of the companies stated that Office is still widely used and that many employees use both tools.

These are just IDC data while there is news that Google and the U.S. government are working on the development of plans to boost Google cloud based services.

Prepared by Armen Hareyan
Materials from IDC, Computerworld and CIO Espana are used in this report.