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Poll Results:

The Excel 2007 Market Share?

How widely used is Excel 2007 in business? Our continuing poll
provides some clues.

by Charley Kyd
June, 2008

Microsoft released both Office 2007 and Vista to retail customers on January 30, 2007. How widely used has Excel 2007 become?

As most Excel users know, Excel 2007 has a radically different user interface than prior versions of the product. Menus and toolbars are gone, replaced by the Ribbon.

(We'd like your opinion about the Ribbon, by the way. Please respond to our survey about the Ribbon.)

To simplify our terminology, we use New Excel to refer to Excel 2007 and future versions, and Classic Excel to refer to prior versions.

Late last year we posted a poll question on our home page that asks which version of Excel you use. Here are the results so far: 

If we assume that Excel users who have answered the poll are fairly typical of all Excel users in business:

• Roughly half of all Excel users in business use New Excel.
   
• Roughly three-fourths of them still use Classic Excel.
   
• Roughly half of New Excel users also use Classic Excel.
   
• These proportions have remained fairly steady over the past several months.

These results could be very useful to you. 

• If you plan to look for work soon and you wonder which version of Excel future employers will want to see on your resume, you probably need to learn both versions. (Sorry about that.) Because most Excel users still use Classic Excel, you probably should start with that program.
   
• If you're trying to decide whether your company should upgrade to Excel 2007, there doesn't seem to be a rush to Excel 2007. Perhaps you should follow the advice of many Excel consultants, and wait for the next generation.
   
• If you're an author or product developer you might wonder whether Classic Excel is still worth your effort. The answer is yes!, Classic Excel definitely is worth your effort. Roughly 75% of all Excel users still use Classic Excel.
   
• If you do buy Excel 2007, be sure to keep your Classic version. About half of all New Excel users have made this choice, and I highly recommend it.

We'll update these results monthly, so check back early next month.