Why Microsoft Office Remains Dominant.
http://readwrite.com/2011/05/15/despite-alternatives-microsoft-office-reigns
If you look onto any computer, whether it is a PC running Windows or a Mac running, you are bound to find some version of Microsoft Office on it. Microsoft definitely has its fair share of presence in the technology world. It alone has an $18billion revenue in just the fourth quarter of 2012. Since the early days of the Windows OS, some form, as basic as it may be, of the Microsoft Office Suite. What started off as just a basic word processor ended up becoming 7 different programs making up what we now know as “Microsoft Office.” John Titlow of readwrite notes that that 80% of companies have used Microsoft from 2 years ago. In a more recent report from Titlow, 74% of IT departments use Microsoft Office, while 8% use Google Docs and 1% were Zoho Docs. The dominance of Microsoft is simple astonishing. Almost every other alternative to Microsoft Office may be “good,” but many lack the sheer amount of features that Micosoft Office has, especially with Microsoft Word. While Microsoft Office might be a good product, the price of it ($120 for the most basic package and $500 for the complete suite) is often the cause of people searching for alternatives.
When looking at the hold Microsoft Office has in the technology world, its easy to see why not many other products are able to gain a decent footing into the world of “office suites.” The dominance of Microsoft Office can be seen as a cascade that has been strong since computers became commonplace in homes. Since there were few alternatives when it first came out, Microsoft Office gained enough acceptances to pass the threshold of a declining cascade. If you look at it in a social network, there are very few places you could introduce a new product and have it spread to a majority of the network (especially if you look at the network as every computer user in the world). You may get a few niches and separated groups, but there is almost no major penetration of the social network. There are no instances where an alternative can gain a hold of the network and begin overtaking Microsoft. Microsoft’s dominance is almost guaranteed to last as long as Microsoft is still in business.
-jtw92