>> I've yet to meet anybody who thinks MS's prices are reasonable. (OTOH, 
>> everybody wants things to be cheaper, so I guess that's not saying a 
>> lot.)
> 
> No. You know *lots* of people who think it's reasonable. You've also met 
> lots of people who would rather pay less.
> 
> Everyone at your office who actually bought Microsoft products thinks 
> the price was reasonable.

Everyone at my office who bought Microsoft products bought them with 
their PC. :-P

Most people are shocked and dissapointed when I tell them how much the 
software costs by itself.

>> Windows itself usually doesn't crash much if at all, provided you're 
>> careful with it. But Office? I've seen it crash more than 18 times per 
>> day. :-P
> 
> Aren't you running the one that's like ten years old?  Office 97 or 
> something?

We were using Office 97. (And, unsurprisingly, when I was at uni 10 
years ago, we were using a 10-year-old Office, yes.) Now we're using 
Office 2003 at work. It still glitches, but the people who use it have 
gradually figured out tricks to get round it.

>> M$ Office 2007, full package, £350.
> 
> If you buy it one-off, it's pretty expensive. But given that you're 
> buying something like 8 programs, it's not all that bad. And it does a 
> lot more than Nero does. If you really need a business contact manager, 
> then a half-day's pay for software that handles all your business 
> presentation needs isn't that bad.
> 
>> If you think that's "cheap", then good for you.
> 
> It is for a professional.
> 
>> To me, that seems seriously steep. 
> 
> You're not a professional.

The trouble with this argument is, the so-called "home" version doesn't 
have half the stuff in it that home users want. I got caught out with 
this. Some guy wanted to edit a PowerPoint presentation for a local 
gathering, so I bought him a copy of Office Home, and... guess what? 
This "office" is actually just Word and Excell. That's a hell of a lot 
of money just for a buggy wordprocessor and a reasonable spreadsheet.

(I had expected that the home version would just leave out the high-end 
stuff like InfoPath that home users won't need. THAT would have made 
sense. But no, apparently not...)

>> Hell, the super-dupa-ultra-mega edition of Nero only costs £40 or so, 
>> and everybody complains about how over-priced that is.
> 
> Except, you know, the people who are professionals at producing CDs, 
> perhaps.

I'm pretty sure professionals wouldn't buy a consumer-oriented product 
such as Nero. (The premium edition takes over your entire PC in an 
almost viral fashion...)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

Post a reply to this message