Does OpenOffice have 11 million active U.S. users?

While Microsoft Office is actively used by roughly 50 percent of U.S. Internet users, according to a 2,400-strong survey administered by ClickStream Technologies, 5 percent of U.S. Web users also actively use the open-source productivity suite OpenOffice.org.

Importantly, ClickStream wasn't measuring installations. It was measuring use. The company actually installed client-side software that tracked which applications the users were running. To have OpenOffice in use across 5 percent of U.S. Internet users is pretty amazing.

How many people does this translate into? According to recent data, there are 303 million people living in the United States, 72.5 percent of which have Internet access. This suggests that of a population of 219 million U.S. Internet users, nearly 11 million actively use OpenOffice.

In other words, OpenOffice is not a niche geek phenomenon. With more than 46 million downloads of version 3.0 alone, OpenOffice could prove unpleasantly disruptive to Microsoft's desktop business.

True, 5 percent U.S. market share doesn't sound like much, but an estimated 11 million people interacting with OpenOffice on a daily basis sounds like an incredible beachhead for much broader market penetration.

[Renegade Knight]

I've got it on every computer. I've even started using it since it "just installs and works". Office has me call the mothership to plug in a code every time I do a fresh install.

[Maccess]

I install it on every computer I set up or tweak as the default Office Install. If the users want a commercial and expensive office suite, they can go ahead and file a separate budget request for that. Most don't, and use OO.o

[myles taylor]

I still haven't got to the point where I use it, but I really want to. Anything to break free of Office completely.

[mailbox001]

If 46 mil downloaded it and 11 mil Actively uses it. That means 75% didn't like it and went back to using Office or some people downloaded it more than once (not installed but downloaded it).

[sythara]

Not true. I have 5 machines at home and downloaded it for every one of them. Was too lazy to look for my flash drive to copy over that way.

Also, does the the download number include the distributions of linux it comes with or just actual downloads from openoffice.org?

[Seaspray0]

Agree with sythara. You can't make any assumptions based on the number of times it was downloaded. That would be like trusting the internet voting on American Idol. The more accurate indicator is usage (like what clickstream measured).

[rcrusoe]

Your math doesn't work. What about companies like mine that download one copy of OOo and install it for 200 users?

[urackon]

All of you seem to be forgetting that the United States is not the only country in the world. That 46 million includes other countries as well

[kieranmullen]

It is nice to see some promoting of open source software on this website that is heavily sponsored by Microsoft. If this software is installed in more and more schools (It is installed as a secondary option at PDX.edu) it will increase awareness. If budgets get cut more the staff will be looking for ways to trim costs. This would be the first option to go, with perhaps more machines running open source operating system in the future.

KieranMullen
http://360oregon.com

[CaptThom]

I specifically asked that Office be removed from the new laptop I bought, so that I could run OpenOffice without the possibility of interference by the mighty MicroO. OpenOffice is installed on both my Mac and my PC and have had no complaints and no loss of productivity. In short, another small nail in the coffin of Microsoft world domination.

[mbenedict]

ClickStream's methodology is tainted and cannot be relied on. For one, their data comes from "paid surveys". The whole paid survey industry is rife with fraud and has little credibility left.

One could also argue population bias here. The type of people who'd participate in "paid surveys" might also be the type of people who'd seek cheap or free software like OpenOffice.

I can't believe anyone would put credibility into paid survey results, much less extrapolating those results to the entire country.

Then again this is CNET.

[Seaspray0]

Political polls are also paid surveys which have shown to contain some accuracy with a known standard deviation, and the people who respond to those present an even greater bias. Unless you can give something more accurate, then I will accept the results of the survey as a credible, valid indicator of use.

[joe1172]

Hold on, 5% of a sample size of 2400 - that means 120 users in the survey used OpenOffice regularly.
If you look further you will see:
"Participants were recruited through a market research firm which awards cash and prizes in exchange for completing online surveys. "
Which means you are going to bias your sample to people attracted to cash prizes (students, low income etc).
Also, the average unique days used is also only 8 days over 6 months. Hardly regular use. If you're just trying it out I think you would see a few unique days use.

I would like to see a larger sample size with reports of the number of users that have a file association of .docx set-up to be OpenOffice. Or the number of Open Office documents in the LRU list.

[odubtaig]

Only if that includes the percentage with a file association for .docx set up to be anything at all or Word XP/2003 and the number who have a file association of .odt set up to be MS Word.

[twolf2919]

Small comment regarding the author's math: the total population of the US includes people unable to use the Internet (I'm thinking young children, feeble-minded, etc.) Young children (0-5) alone make up 7% of this population. So if the 5% figure is accurate, the number of users is likely less than 10million.

[trboyden]

This statistic probably is attributable to computer manufacturers like HP and Lenovo including OpenOffice in their retail system images. I've seen quite a few systems lately that have come with OpenOffice pre-installed. It's a huge value-added feature for a computer manufacturer to be able to include a full office suite for free with their computers, and the major manufacturers are starting to see the light of open source software. Currently Microsoft hasn't made a move to ban manufacturers from including OpenOffice like they have with Linux operating systems, but we will see if that continues if OpenOffice keeps grabbing market share.

[MadLyb]

I downloaded and used it for a while, but once I got my Home Use disks (All of Office for $20), I went back to MS.

I like OO, but I can do a lot more in MS Office and if I am not paying full price, why not?

[van_Zeller]

cut that number in half. In fact, make it 5 million. It's still a lot.

[fjpoblam]

I've used it on and off for quite awhile. I got intense about it with this latest release, when OpenOffice got sincere about speeding it up. This thing is fast: faster than Office, and Writer creates PDFs. It's free, and it works on my Windoze AND my MacOSX boxes. Can't beat that!

[tm_anon]

Works on Linux too, no differences between the three versions.

[kelmon]

How is this data gathered? What constitutes an "active user"? I have downloaded OpenOffice myself to have a look at it but I do not currently use it. Given this I would want to know how these statistics were gathered before accepting them.

[obvio-capitao]

"While Microsoft Office is actively used by roughly 50 percent of U.S. Internet users, according to a 2,400-strong survey administered by ClickStream Technologies, 5 percent of U.S. Web users also actively use the open-source productivity suite OpenOffice.org."

The 5% figure is 10% of Microsoft's usage rate (which is 51%).

If you think of real market share ("office suite users"), Microsoft has 90%, OpenOffice 9%.

Firefox took 3 years to come from zero to 20% market share. Is it possible that OpenOffice will reach 20% in the near future?