Apple Chases Microsoft Office When It Should Be Disrupting It

At Apple’s big unveiling for the new iPads yesterday, it made a lot of noise about giving away its iWork office productivity suite in a bid to unseat Microsoft Office. This led the New York Times today to boldly declare:

“Apple Targets Microsoft Office With Free Apps”

I hope not.

After all, it’s a losing proposition. Just ask the folks behind OpenOffice or LibreOffice. Despite years of raging against the Office machine, they’ve actually gone backwards, according to a new Forrester survey. In 2011 some 11% of enterprises surveyed were experimenting with non-Microsoft alternatives to Office. But in 2013, that number is down to 5%.