Comments for Word Processing: Most of You Still Use Desktop Software

Word Processing: Most of You Still Use Desktop Software

2008-09-05T14:00:00Z

This week we ran a poll asking which word processing tool you primarily use. We wanted to see if things had changed much since we ran the same poll one year ago.

So are ReadWriteWeb readers, many of whom are early adopters of Internet technology, using online word processing services now instead of desktop software? Er, no.

]]> As at time of writing, over 1,500 people had voted. 48% of those still use Microsoft Word as their main word processing tool. Its open source desktop equivalent OpenOffice got 15%. However, there is good news for Web Office fans - Google Docs was in second place with 17%. This is a 6% increase from last year according to our polls.

Less Than 1/4 of You Use an Online Word Processer as Your Main Tool

Let's delve further into the results, firstly for the desktop software. Last year MS Word got 46% and this year 48%. So not much has changed for the dominant office software supplier, even with RWW's Net savvy readers. OpenOffice slipped a bit, down from 17% last year to 15% this year. Overall, 76% of readers still use a desktop software program as their main word processing tool (counting the 8% who use a text editor for this purpose). That's up slightly from 74% the same time last year.

That means that less than 25% of our readers use an online service as their primary means of doing word processing. The best of the online breed was Google Docs, with 17%, up from 11%. This is a good sign though, because Google Docs is now second behind only MS Word.

Google Docs Gains Users, But Not From Microsoft

What was a little surprising is that the Web startups competing with Google Docs all performed worse than last year. ThinkFree got 2%, Buzzword 1%, Zoho 1%, and Zimbra less than 1%. ThinkFree and Zoho both polled at 5% last year and Zimbra 2% (Buzzword wasn't in last year's poll). This indicates that Google Docs has gained users not from MS Word... but from the online startups.

Tell us your reaction to these results. What's happened to the startups? Are they doomed in this market dominated by the big guns?

Comment from Cristian Vidmar on 2008-09-05

2008-09-05T14:46:51Z

I use online tools a lot where team collaboration is key, mostly with spreadsheets, but I don't think the user experience of online office apps can compete with desktop apps. Not as much as gmail can compete with traditional email clients, for example. The first ones are imitations while gmail is a paradigm shift. Startups are doomed until they can make that kind of shift (and then get acquired by google, of course :))

Comment from Todd Andrews on 2008-09-05

2008-09-05T14:53:28Z

This is one of those things that people will take a long time to move towards. The online tools have been a better option for a couple years now, but it will be a couple more years until they are the norm...especially in the business world.

Comment from Sam on 2008-09-05

2008-09-05T15:02:20Z

Yes. I think Google could do quite a bit of a better job on Google Docs. Just by simply adding the possibility to store 5MB of other documents like PDFs would make a great difference for me.

The best thing about Google Docs is that I can edit the files from anywhere - problem is that I have to keep them in an editable document form (as opposed to PDF) so I (in my case) would have to save locally (at home, at work, ...) as PDF, which just spoils the whole game for me.

I do think (maybe with browser addons like google gears) the user experience can be just as good in a browser as offline applications like word.

Comment from Sam on 2008-09-05

2008-09-05T15:05:28Z

Ooops. I just noticed that Google Docs has added the possibility to save PDFs... cool!

Comment from Cristian Vidmar on 2008-09-05

2008-09-05T15:06:39Z

@Sam: yes, it CAN be but it's probably not so yet. I look forward to that, really.

Comment from Avon Blake on 2008-09-05

2008-09-05T15:16:24Z

Frankly, anyone who uses Word, or any microsoft software, is an idiot. With so much free stuff around that works 100 times better than Microsoft's pathetic offerings there really is no excuse anymore.

Comment from sandbaggerone on 2008-09-05

2008-09-05T15:31:43Z

Scrivener and Textmate for composing long and short pieces; Pages for layout.

Comment from Convos on 2008-09-05

2008-09-05T15:59:01Z

I think the use of word processors depend on your personal system of writing. I like to use lightweight text programs (e.g., WordPad for PC and Mori for Mac) to keep notes and write drafts. Then i move everything over to an email or to MS Word for formatting.

Overall MS word is to heavy to use all the time and i don't find online office apps very convenient yet. The only thing useful for office apps is collaboration.

Comment from frrua on 2008-09-05

2008-09-05T16:41:38Z

I use IBM Lotus Symphony for text processing (it's based on Open Office, but has superior look & feel) and Google Docs for brainstorming purposes mostly - later one because I can always check details of my ideas in any place on my cellphone.

Comment from Rob Colburn on 2008-09-05

2008-09-05T17:34:55Z

I don't know that this is all to clear cut.

If I'm we're going to write something I wanted to look professional I would use Word. It's faster, not going to go in to full benchmarks/ui's here, but it's really fast to open Word.

On the other hand, I rarely write anything anymore I care to be "professional" about. Web 2.0 has converted me and the people I work with to writing more short-lived information. E-mail, Quick write-ups, wiki's. Online Apps work great for this, and I can easier collaborate on a document.

Google Docs is more ubiquitous with the people I work with, even though I don't really like their feature set.

Comment from bill martin on 2008-09-05

2008-09-05T19:01:43Z

I use Atlassian,s Confluence wiki..export as word or pdf if I need to for others. Have not created a word doc in a year

Comment from pwb on 2008-09-05

2008-09-05T20:10:40Z

If you're analyzing word processor usage, you have to include email services which is where the vast majority of word processing is occurring these days.

Comment from Jimmy on 2008-09-05

2008-09-06T01:35:42Z

Rob and pwb are spot on. Writing, for the vast majority, has moved from word processors to email clients (web or desktop). That's the major reason why Microsoft spends a ton of resources on improving Outlook (and it is the best piece of software in the whole Office suite). If you have been following Microsoft Office through the years, you will notice that Outlook has taken over the center stage from Word and Excel in Office 2007.

Comment from Tom on 2008-09-05

2008-09-06T04:15:03Z

I use Apple's iWork suite, which means Pages for word processing.

Comment from SoloGen on 2008-09-05

2008-09-06T05:24:19Z

I use a combination of TextEdit (for small writings), NeoOffice (which I recently started using instead of MS Word), and TeXShop for my technical writings.

Comment from Rollo on 2008-09-06

2008-09-06T08:46:20Z

Agree with 10. Email and wikis do textual communication just fine in a digital world. Word processing software (ie, with advanced formatting capability) is only really necessary for creating paper documents.

Or (sigh) for communicating with people who haven't yet understood the above.

Comment from Lorraine Ball on 2008-09-06

2008-09-06T18:24:50Z

For me it is because I am still sharing documents with many clients and friends not using Google docs. As a matter of fact, i have clients who still fax rather than attach to email.

Comment from Jeff S on 2008-09-06

2008-09-06T18:34:55Z

The only documentation I do now is for work, and OmniOutliner Pro is what I have settled on (after trying Eclipse/LaTeX, Mellel, and Pages).

During school (graduated last year) I was going back and forth between Mellel/Sente and TextMate/LaTeX/BibDesk (just for variety). If I go for a Masters I might try sticking with Eclipse/LaTeX; I rather like how it works (including its easy integration with Mercurial and assembla.com).

Comment from Graham Robson on 2008-09-07

2008-09-07T09:43:55Z

I use Clearspace (Jivesoftware) collaborative environment. WYSIWYG editor (new version arriving this month), with external cloud collaboration & PDF output.

Comment from John Davis on 2008-09-07

2008-09-07T14:42:22Z

If it's just writing, either TextEdit or NisusWriter. If I have to do layouts, and/or make it look good, I use Pages. Actually, I'm growing to like Pages more and more.

Word and any of the imitations are far too complex. Word was good up to Version 5.1, then it went silly.

John Davis

Comment from Arvin on 2008-09-07

2008-09-07T18:09:06Z

if I need to collaborate I'm going to use 37signals Whiteboard. But at work we all individually rely on Word. It's standard and it's what's made available to us. I'd prefer to use iWork if given the opportunity. Also now with Chrome I can save Web apps, hopefully this will make shortcuts a lot simpler to navigate to.

Give it time, soon asthe younger generation become the thought leaders, our cheapness will push openoffice and web apps into mainstream enterprise workflow without fail.