With its lucrative Office suite in decline, Microsoft is feeling the heat. Once accountable for about 50 percent of Microsoft's revenues, Office contributed less than one-third of the company's revenues throughout 2004, and increased competition from low-cost options such as Corel WordPerfect Office 12 and Sun's StarOffice/OpenOffice.org tandem are starting to hurt as well. But Microsoft's biggest competition in the office productivity space, ironically, comes from within: Older versions of the Office suite, including Office 2000, XP, and 2003, are often cited by customers as being good enough. Thus, businesses aren't upgrading to new Office versions as quickly as they used to. And most now skip a version or two before upgrading.
|