Office Suites market grew by 51% in 1998-99: IDC India

The office suites market in the country has

witnessed an excellent growth of 51 per cent in the financial year 1998-99

(April 1998-March 1999). The number of units shipped have gone up from

125,000 in 1997-98 to 188,500 in 1998-99. The two main products 'MS Office

97' from Microsoft and 'Smart Suite' from Lotus have market shares of

about 66 per cent and 33 per cent, respectively. This closely matches the

share they had in 1997-98. While Microsoft's sales cut across different

market segments, about 60 per cent of Lotus' sales came from their bundled

offering with IBM and Acer PCs and Portables and sales to the Government

accounts.