Windows 7: Microsoft posts video of customers criticizing OpenOffice

try office 2010...

It is not just all of that, it really has more to do with compatibility issues as well as robustness.

OO just does not offer what MS Office does in the corporate or small business world.
They can not compete. Not because they are being shut out, but because the product just isn't there to compete. If they put more time and effort into it, maybe.

The compatibility issues are no small thing for people who share many documents in-which they need to edit and send back and forth. OO causes corruption to files.

If you know where to look, it's pretty easy to reinstall free trials of almost anything over and over again... shhhhh.... lol

If you know how to backup your registry before installing the program, clear it after the uninstallation, and merge your old registry back in, you're set. I did that with my Adobe CS5 products before I finally bought them.

It seems that I am different to everyone else who has posted on this thread, in that I use Wordperfect Office and have done so ever since it came out on a floppy disk all those years ago. It may not be as good as MS Office but it suits me and I am comfortable using it.

I can never understand why Microsoft, having sold sufficient numbers of Office 2010 to recoup their developement costs, don't start selling Office 2007 for a minimal amount. Any money they make is pure profit and using 2007 might well tempt someone into buying the newer version.

Games manufacturers do this all the time. I've just bought the original Assassin's Creed (£5) to see if I liked it. I do and will now go and buy the later version. Multiply my £5 by all the others who have done the same thing and there's the profit.

I fear that Microsoft's reputation for charging as much as possible for their products may well be working against them.

If you're comfortable using it, then go for it!

EDIT: I agree, much of their products are very well expensive, which is why they battle piracy issues so much.

The reason for this is as follows.........

MS are not stopping at the end of development of a single product, such as many Game Devs do.
The ones that have multiple "chapters" are not the same.
They create a product and they sell as many as they can for a short time, they know that at some point, sales of a game are going to drop off because there just isn't that kind of demand for all games, even on the really big selling titles, they only sell a finite number of each release. They make enough off of each of those releases to balance out there long term plans for a series, which is finite. And they are not the ones cutting the price on the product. The sellers/stores are.

MS are developing for a single Product, so yes, they make a lot of profit, but a lot of that profit does in fact go back in the R&D of that line as well as others.

Games, The stores are the ones selling them that cheap to either recoup the costs or just get them off their shelves or out of storage and clear room for the next title.

It is an Apple Juice and Apple Crisp scenario, they may fall under the category of Apples, but they are not the same.

Basically, Microsoft never drops its prices because there's a relatively steady demand for their products. They budget several months or years into the future based on projected sales, much the way other large corporations do. However, having virtually no competition means Microsoft doesn't have to plan for the same kind of large scale fluctuations in sales that are seen with other markets, and therefore need a much lower percentage of liquid assets than other companies in order to remain operational. Chances are anything that could reduce Microsoft's market share by even 5% would be a serious threat to them. And If something were to permanently reduce microsoft's sales of office products by 40%, I would be surprised if it didn't put them in serious financial trouble. That is the reason they make videos of people criticizing a product like open office. Enough said on the subject.