• Seattle Times , Tuesday, June 15, 2010 10:39 AM

The power in the tech market has moved from straight-laced business people who needed spreadsheet software to balance their bottom lines to consumers looking to network and play games, Sharon Pian Chan reports. That's why Microsoft has launched a free Web-based version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote along with the more robust paid version of Office 2010. There's a lesson there for all tech marketers.

It's a generational thing, says Viji Murali, CIO at Washington State University, who sees a divide between Millennial "digital natives" and Boomer "digital immigrants." Digital natives, she says, know what they want and expect companies to deliver it. Older consumers grew up with calculators (or slide rules).

"Every time a new technology comes out, it's a major change to us [in our 50s]. We have to pick up a manual to figure out how to use it. The digital natives don't need a manual. They intuitively know what to do with the technology when presented to them."

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