Worldwide Office Suite Market Grew 57 Percent in 1995

Microsoft Extended Its Lead with Nearly 90 Percent of the Market

San Jose, Calif., March 4, 1996—Despite all the transactions and turmoil in the suite market in 1995, the market continued its steady growth with worldwide revenue increasing 57 percent, according to Dataquest's preliminary results. Lotus was acquired by IBM, Novell acquired and then put up for sale the old WordPerfect, and Microsoft released Windows 95. Through all this commotion, Microsoft's market share reached 89.4 percent in 1995.

"Microsoft's market position was even more impressive because it managed to dominate unit sales as well as dollar sales despite commanding almost twice as much per office suite at the cash register," said Chris Le Tocq, director and principal analyst of Dataquest's Personal Computing Software program. "Lotus' shipments grew more than 50 percent, but its revenue actually declined because of bruising pricing strategies designed to maintain unit market share. Novell showed the most growth, but sales suffered a severe drop off after the shipment of Windows 95."

Novell revenue grew 171 percent in 1995. Microsoft revenue increased 64 percent, while IBM/Lotus dropped 8.6 percent (see Table 1).

Table 1
Worldwide Office Suite Market Share Estimates
(Millions of U.S. Dollars)

Company               1994       1995     1994-1995   1995 Market
                     Revenue   Revenue   Growth (%)    Share (%)
Microsoft Corp.       1,649     2,706       64.1          89.4
IBM/Lotus               234       214       -8.6           7.1
Novell                   40       108      171.4           3.6
Total                 1,923     3,028       57.5         100.0
Note: Novell includes combined results for the Wordperfect and
Borland suites, both acquired.  Because of rounding, the total
percentage does not  equal 100.0.
Source: Dataquest (March 1996)

Microsoft showed balanced growth throughout the year. Novell's revenue declined sharply in the third and fourth quarter with the release of Windows 95. In the fourth quarter, Novell's revenue dropped to $12 million with 1.5 percent market share (see Table 2).

Table 2
Quarterly Worldwide Office Suite Revenue Estimates
(Millions of U.S. Dollars)

Company               Q1/95      Q2/95      Q3/95      Q4/95
                     Revenue    Revenue    Revenue    Revenue
Microsoft Corp.        582        634        738        753
IBM/Lotus               46         58         47         63
Novell                  44         36         15         12
Total                  672        728        800        828
Source: Dataquest (March 1996)

Additional information about the suite market is available through Dataquest's PC Software program. Each major vendor and application in the spreadsheet, word processing, suite, database, and e-mail category is evaluated. To purchase this report, or inquire about Dataquest's other reports, please call 800-419-DATA. More information about Dataquest's programs, descriptions of recent research reports, and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://www.dataquest.com.

Dataquest, founded in 1971, is a global market research and consulting company serving the high-technology and financial communities. The company provides worldwide market coverage on the semiconductor, computer systems and peripherals, communications, document management, software, and services sectors of the information technology industry. Dataquest is a GartnerGroup [ http://www.gartner.com/ ] Company.