Report: Web Office Support, Expectations Still Low in Enterprises

Written by Richard MacManus / April 28, 2009 7:16 PM / 8 Comments

Forrester is set to release a new report about Web Office, which ReadWriteWeb got a sneak peak at. The report offers new data on office productivity innovation and cloud productivity suite adoption. The full data will be presented at Forrester's IT Forum, to be held in Las Vegas May 19-22, 2009. The data shows that while enterprises are looking forward to innovation in web access and collaboration, they're not so forward-looking when it comes to data integration. Also we discover that the vast majority of IT departments still support Microsoft Office, but very few support Google Premier Apps right now.

Forrester asked 152 IT decision makes what innovation they are looking for in future Web Office applications. Web access and better collaboration solutions both scored near the 50% mark. More mundane office tasks like document management and provisioning were in the 33-36% range. We're a little surprised that more IT decision makers aren't looking for more data integration between apps, which scored just 33%.

As we have been explaining in recent posts, this current era of the Web (which some have termed "Web 3.0", a term we're ambivalent about) has a big focus on using data and making it smarter. As Marshall Kirkpatrick explained in a post today about Google making more public data searchable, "the coming era of the web is based on data, on drawing patterns and meaning out of a far larger body of data than the human mind alone could ever comprehend." In the enterprise setting, much of the data may still be locked behind a firewall - but there will still be much more data in the future than today, so enterprises will need solutions to gather data from different apps, integrate between apps, and use it.

In another slide, Forrester concluded that cloud computing adoption within enterprises is still low. 80% of respondants still support crusty old Microsoft Office, while just 3% claim to support Google Premier Apps. It really does seem like the whole enterprise industry is sitting back and waiting on Microsoft to roll out their long-awaited Web Office offerings. By these figures, it doesn't appear like Google is making too much of a dent in the market. However we're sure it is just a matter of time before Web Office suites are common in the workplace - even Microsoft has acknowledged that cloud computing will be an important driver for enterprise software.

Let us know in the comments what you think of these statistics. Are you seeing different adoption and expectations inside your workplace?

Comments

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Businesses want the operational benefits of cloud computing, but they want it to deliver a rich feature set such as Office 2007.

Google Docs doesn't come close to meeting that need. Microsoft will get there first, and already has to an extent thanks to application virtualization in the enterprise.

The stats in the article are interesting, and mirror some of our experience. Businesses might still "support" Office 2003 or earlier, but have largely rolled out Office 2007 (so the Office 2003 "support" is for a small percentage of older computers that haven't reached rollover date yet).

Posted by: Paul | April 28, 2009 7:57 PM

I use Google Doc all the time, it is better than Office in terms of collaboration, but still lack of features and easiness corporate would need. It should do better job to be compatible with MS Office if it want to attract corporate users.

Posted by: wei | April 28, 2009 7:58 PM

Medium/large org. IT managers like control and to keep their clients captured behind firewalls (inside the fortress). FUD rules!

Google reduces their control, reduces their empire, reduces their mana, reduces their status...

However, their grip is slipping (as their clients see the better innovation and levels of support from the cloud) and the $ squeeze is on...

Posted by: scamp | April 29, 2009 12:08 AM

These findings map to what Burton Group has seen, and what I predicted in my 55-page report on Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) back in August 2007.

GAPE is lacking enterprise functionality--role-based administration, cascading e-mail distribution lists, records management--the list goes on. This is largely because Google took a consumer product, called it an enterprise product, and figured the power of the Google brand would fuel sales without having to do the heavy lifting of changing the underlying data model to be enterprise-friendly.

In my talks with clients, there is large pent-up demand for a web-based productivity suite--assuming that it's less expensive than Microsoft Office and fosters greater collaboration. Just taking the current software functionality and moving it to the web is not interesting to enterprises; however, they are VERY interested in gaining more functionality at a lower price.

Posted by: Guy Creese | April 29, 2009 5:45 AM

This Forrester report confirms my findings when it comes to webbased Office functionality. Everyone talks about it but very little people actually use it as their primary Office tools. Because everyone talks about it, there is also the general perception that webbased Office tools are widely used.

This research shows that only 3% of the users interviewed use Google Premier Apps. I doubt if this is truely the replacement for their Office Suite or if they use Google Apps alongside it.

In many cases where people talk about webbased Office suites or have questions in that direction I find that it is not actually the editiing functions they like / desire, its the ability to *share documents*; often with people outside their own department / organisation. Something we used to call groupware. Hence in the same research the requirement for Collaboration functionality.

I do agree with the conclusion that the demand for webbased office tools will grow. Not because the browser is the ideal UI but because users want the ability to from every locations with any device. Rich functions and offline capability when running Office locally and browser / mobile functions when they are not behind their own PC.

Functionality in the browser is the ideal companion next to my PC based apps, basically this is the way I use Outlook Web Access today. I access email through OWA whenever and wherever I am not behind my PC and when my mobile phone doesn’t help me process emails fast enough.

Posted by: Peter de Haas | April 29, 2009 8:02 AM

I wonder how many individuals and small businesses and government agencies are "silently" using the free Google Docs, Picasa, Sites, Calendar who ignore surveys of this type ...

Posted by: Milt Martin | April 29, 2009 4:04 PM

One of the key issues I see the enterprise bumping up against with working in cloud apps is the custody chain on company and client data considered proprietary or confidential. I really want to see these apps get more integrated into the enterprise - but overcoming the legal hurdles is tough..

Posted by: Blane | April 30, 2009 10:31 AM