I am still using Office 2000 and you know why? The damn price is just to high to upgrade. This is the #1 reason why people cheat and load illegal copies of Office XP. Seems Microsoft has had a little pity on us poor souls and lowered the price of full versions by $100.00. So my main question is why didn’t they lower the price of the upgrade version.
It’s highway robbery! If the price was reasonable I would buy upgrades for all 5 of my personal computers. For those that have Pirated Office, I bet most would rather have registered supported software that will accept security patches etc. How do you get the sophisticated mom and dads to buy Office when the price is so bloody expensive? The answer to that is they don’t. I ran an informal poll recently and asked what Office Suite people used and if the version they were running was a legal copy, the answers were so surprising that I am not going to even publish what most said. But you can be guaranteed there is a lot of Pirated Office versions running around.
There alternative is the piece of crap Microsoft Works. Lets look at it this way, most people will have Office XP or Office 2000 loaded at there workplace. They use it become proficient and like the package. Yet when they go home if they are honest citizens they are more than likely running Microsoft Works that came with there computer when they purchased it. Would it not make more sense for Microsoft to make Office more affordable for the average citizen. Seems to me the lower cost would compensate for lost sales and reduced piracy.
Don’t even get me started of the full retail version of the antiquated Windows 98! that I saw for a $157.00 in office depot last week and to think that Microsoft considers pirates criminals. Microsoft should remove company employee software perks for management and make them pay full retail to get a taste of what you and I have to dish out. [ZDNet]