Jim, Mike,

>>> No argument with that! Except, alas, life just isn't that way. The mighty MS marketing machine is excellent at selling Office.
>>
>>Then why the subscirption model? Why those upgrade deadlines? They were doing pretty excellent before they offered every feature and tehn some that people want, and before everyone owned it.
>>
>Don't ask me - I think the subscription model, as envisioned by MS, STINKS! But the answer is probably GREED.

Ughh.. Without making everyone who draes a paycheck from Microsoft a greedy bastard why can't the answer to this just be "Cash Flow"? Remember, some 40,000 employees (plus what, another 60,000 spouses & children?) depend upon the continued successes of Microsoft. If by the use (careless IMO) of the word 'greed' you mean something along the lines of de Tocqueville's notion of "Enlightened Self Interest" I'll wholeheartedly agree. If you mean a sort of craven defintion I'll strenously object; and that based upon the fact that so many of the employees of Microsoft are such nice folks. Are Mike Stewart, Garrett, Calvin, Gene, Randy, etc this greedy? I think not.

I also do not like the subscription model but I understand that an organization like Microsoft has to have a constant source of revenues.

Suppose they could build the perfect OS but then in 5 years they'd end up spending more to retool after shutting down the current OS development - after creating the perfect OS.

Is it perfect? No.. No way. What are the alternatives, particularly if you're in the position of managing a corporation with 15-20,000 employees, all of whom need support?


>
>>>I'll bet, in fact, that there are more systems with ONLY office installed than there are with other packaged products installed.
>>
>>I bet not. I bet more people have an HTML browser than Office. Thats how I'll send my documents.
>
>Except IE is not a "packaged product". Since many browsers are free I should have said purchased package products.