Figure 8.10 shows the number of wins in the DOS word processor market for various products. And once again, measures of quality explain that change. In short, with the change in operating system came a change in leadership. During the 1990s, however, we see a decline in DOS word processors and a rise in Windows word processors-Word for Windows, WordPerfect for Windows, and Ami Pro for Windows. By 1987, however, WordPerfect was in first place. In 1984 WordStar was the leading product in the reader ratings, followed by Microsoft Word (DOS) and MultiMate. And the story in the reader ratings accurately reflects the history of market share. The dominance of DOS WordPerfect is clear in the reader ratings of PC World Magazine (Figure 8.9). Where WordPerfect fell behind was in developing a high-quality product for Windows, and in incorporating its product into a high-quality office suite. Unlike WordStar, WordPerfect was always judged a high-quality product in its DOS incarnation. The story was different with WordPerfect. WordStar, the original leader in the word processor market, lost its market position by failing to keep its quality at the level of its competition. Ami Pro showed some good growth (in terms of units) but never achieved much of a market share in terms of revenues. WordPerfect for Windows, which was introduced in late 1991, a year after its OS/2 product was introduced and almost two years after Windows 3.0 was introduced, jumped initially to a 20% market share, but then its market share stabilized and began to decline. By 1994 it dominated the market more completely than WordPerfect had, even during its peak years. By the time Windows became the dominant operating system, the two leading Windows word processors were Ami Professional and Microsoft Word.Īfter the introduction of Windows 3.0, Microsoft Word grew at an extraordinary rate. Microsoft Word for Windows hit the market in late 1989, and began to generate a serious market share in 1990. In the late 1980s Microsoft shifted its attention away from its DOS version of Word, which was then number two in the market, and began to focus on the Windows version. This history is tracked in Figure 8.8, which portrays market shares of the leading word processors. In the next few years, however, WordPerfect broke away from the pack, and by 1990 it clearly dominated the market. In 1986 WordPerfect and WordStar were the two leading word processors, with moderately larger market shares than several other programs (DisplayWrite, Word, MultiMate, Samna Word).
Note: All footnotes, which contain a great deal of detailed information, are excluded from this web version of the paper.
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