If I had to guess what direction OO development is headed in, I'd say things are headed in a more service-oriented architecture direction. It'll be great if you want a customed-out integrated groupware, collaboration, data analysis and document management solution, and you've got a large, skilled IT staff (and/or Oracle or IBM service contract) to set it up. I doubt it's going to be any good for standalone plain vanilla desktop apps.
Could be I'm wrong about this; but it's open to question where this is headed.
I am very grateful for the work that has been put into open-source office software, and know that they face an uphill battle with the peculiarities of Microsoft's formats.
However OpenOffice & LibreOffice (and possibly Google Docs) are functionality equivalent, and use open source standards. This raises the biggest question with OpenSource products: is the poor experience worth no vendor lock in?
Given Greek austerity mesures, compatibility assurance, the educational use of the product, and it will force MS to compete it's best Greece uses OpenSource.
It's nice to actually see it quickly improving now they've forked, given how stagnant Open Office development was when Sun (and then Oracle) was in charge.
You may or may not be right on the value of MS Office, but I think its use in this context is easily and legitimately challenged.
For interacting with the business world, Microsoft Office is absolutely essential -- a bargain at thrice the price.
The equivalent to your argument, is a person making 20,000€/year, asking for a small family car and you suggest a Porsche because "it worths every single cent".
Microsoft certainly wants to be a sole supplier on a privately discussed contract. If I were trying to maximize my profits, I'd want exactly the same.
Presumably if they want to give discounts or special deals they don't want to do it publicly where everybody (including competitors and future potential customers) can see, but I wonder if this sort of tactic is something that's even tenable going forward? With so many of these contracts coming into the open, will they be able to continue giving discounts on a customer-by-customer basis?
