Application analytics startup SoftWatch has published a new report which claims that most enterprise employees rarely use Microsoft Office and that companies could save money by switching to cloud-based alternatives. The conclusions are based on a three-month study of 148,500 employees in 51 global enterprises. On average, employees used their office productivity apps 48 minutes a day, and the bulk of that, 65 percent, was spent with Microsoft Outlook. They used Excel eight minutes per day, Word five minutes per day and PowerPoint just two minutes per day.
SoftWatch recommends that organizations move light users of Microsoft Office to cloud computing-based alternatives, like Google Apps. SoftWatch also says applications analytics can help companies make similar decisions about licensing other types of software.
