of Office, it's available for $150 and gives you three, count'em, three
licences of Office to be used within one family. That means $50/person. Not
at all unreasonable. I know that people are defining family rather loosely
in order to get that price, but that's another issue, and nowhere near the
$400 you cited. When Microsoft finally came up with student/family pricing,
I could finally recommend Office to people in good faith.
But isn't that precisely the point. Most people would willingly pay $30-$60 for the Home/Student/Teacher version of Office. Instead they must spend $150(ish) depending on the retailer and then bend or break the rules to distribute the license across 3 family members (In which some include roommates, boyfriends, or neighbors). Even worse, schools tend to get the full version of Office which retails for $400/seat and includes access, publisher, etc. So it seems you can recommend Office with a wink or OpenOffice with a smile, and small apologies for its shortcomings.
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