Office 2010 powers along
Microsoft’s latest results show that Office 2010 is very popular.
Microsoft’s third quarter results include a report that Office 2010 has become the fastest selling version of the productivity suite ever. More important for Microsoft, sales are gathering more dollars into the company coffers.
The company’s Business Division includes Office and ‘back room’ technologies boasted 21% revenue growth. This division makes more money than the Windows division with revenue of $5.25 billion.
According to Microsoft this is due to ‘integrated innovation with SharePoint, Exchange, Lync and Dynamics CRM’. That’s a polite description of Microsoft ongoing strategy of talking about open connectivity while using any technology method they can to encourage organizations to buy Microsoft Office and also the expensive back-end systems from the same company.
Another source of increased revenue is the continuing juggling of Office bundles and offers to maximize the revenue from sales of Office. For example, Office 2010 removed the upgrade option giving reduced prices to past Office customers. This decision alone will have added millions to the Microsoft bank account.
The Windows division isn’t doing as well. While individuals and businesses are switching to Windows 7 (many skipping Vista and moving from XP) sales of PC’s aren’t good in the developed countries. That’s generally blamed on a move to tablet devices, mainly the iPad. We wonder if decisions are being made to keep existing PC’s and spend new money on smartphones as well as tablets.