世論 What Japan Thinks

This seems a rather odd little survey, although perhaps the nature of many of these reports from japan.internet.com is that they heavily abbreviate the full research resulting in rather difficult to understand results, as seems to be the case here. This time they reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into software.

Demographics

Over the 1st and 2nd of August 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing Inc’s monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties.

You’ll notice when you compare the categories in Q1 and Q3 that there are many well-known free software titles that fall into the Q1 options but don’t appear in Q3, with of course Linux in the Operating System category being the most obvious omission – did users categorise it as a security-related application, a general tool, a server or under the Other catch-all?

Research results

Only 71.7% of the sample had actually purchased software, excluding pre-installed software on their computers. Note that almost all of the sample should have home computers, although the exact figures are not reported. These 215 people were then asked what sort of software they had bought.

Q1: What kinds of software have you purchased? (Sample size=215, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Security-related (virus, firewall, etc)	150	69.8%
Games	82	38.1%
Operating System	70	32.6%
Printing (greetings cards, business cards, etc)	64	29.8%
Business (spreadsheet, word processor)	56	26.0%
Utilities (CD, DVD writing, etc)	43	20.0%
Home page creation	42	19.5%
Design, graphics, DTP	31	14.4%
Education	27	12.6%
Data management (database, photos, etc)	19	8.8%
Home budgeting	16	7.4%
Accounting, office	11	5.1%
Programming	11	5.1%
Other	3	1.4%

Q2: From where did you purchase these software titles? (Sample size=215, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Shop	172	80.0%
Download	87	40.5%
Online mail order	62	28.8%
Magazine, other mail order	5	2.3%
Other	5	2.3%

In addition, 73.7% of the sample had used free software. These 221 people were then asked what sort of software they had used.

Q3: What kinds of free software have you used? (Sample size=221, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Compression, decompression	164	74.2%
Video-related	99	44.8%
Game	89	40.3%
Audio-related	79	35.7%
Browser	77	34.8%
Messenger	67	30.3%
Security-related	64	29.0%
Tools	63	28.5%
FTP, other transmission	41	18.6%
Text editor	39	17.6%
Graphics-related	38	17.2%
Notes, memo, etc	27	12.2%
P2P file sharing	23	10.4%
Server	9	4.1%
Other	3	1.4%