[DanGrease]

I was in a computer store yesterday when I stoped to think about something. There was this man looking at the new Office suite (Office 2003) and I was just observing since I had nothing to do. Well, this man asked for help in the store to explain to him whats the difference between Office 2003 and Office XP. After the usual bla bla bla and how its so much better he said but hasnt Office XP been around in a short period of time? Why a whole new suite? Then the extra bla bla bla but he discovered that a box of Office XP was under the bunch of the new suite and when he looked at the price he went 'But its still expensive, not as before when it was released but its still expensive' and he also explained that he had bought Office XP not so far ago and that he paid a lot of money for it. Why should he pay the same amount that he paid for the previous suite when he had paid so much for the previous in a short period of time ago. He also said that he wanted to buy this new version because the previous was getting slow and giving problems. I just tought 'Man, I can imagine how many people can be fooled from big companies to pay a lot of money since they are people that are ignorant that dont know much about these computer stuff' After that again more bla bla bla and I say the brain wash happening and boom he bought the most expensive version of this suite to see if it would fix his problems. I know I wouldnt spend that much money on an office suite that I know wont be that great and that in a short period of time be replaced with a 'better' one. Same thing (although a bit different) with the Windows versions, but also with all the products of big compaines such as Microsoft. People get 'robbed' or brainwashed and the companies win millions of bucks with these people. I know that not all think like me. Most people think that they must have the most new version of a product because its better and the problems that he has will go away. That day I just wanted to talk to the man and tell him 'You know what, if you want to spend money in useless stuff and get brainwashed go ahead. But if you are smart enough you will see that there are other alternatives.' I think most people use their Office suite for word processing and maybe to do some projects and for the business stuff some excel and email. But for the home users, should they spend that much money on an office suite that will get old in one year when they can get one for free and spend the money on something else? One excellent option is OpenOffice An office suite that can be used to do what most people do with their office suites and sometimes even advanced users dont need the expensive suites and can take advantage of this one. I mean why spend hundreds of dollars when you can get one for free and it actually works? Sometimes people like this man I met that are ignorant rgarding these stuff get me both angry and frustrated but I know most people are like this. I think who spends that amount of money on this new office suite is nuts. I had a friend that complained about how Windows 2000 was so slow for him and all that and that he had paid so much for it and how the person in the store said its so much better and all his problems would go away. The problem is that his machine was full of viruses since he used P2P programs, spyware, no firewall and he blamed the program when the cause of the problem was himself. And 80% of the home users in the world are like this and they spend a huge amount of bucks for what? To complain? Anyways I think Microsoft and all the big companies (specially Microsoft) are ridiculous brainwashing people that make them richer everyday. Just wanted to post my opinions and experiences.

*Please dont turn this thread into a flame war, respect each ones opinions and thought please*

dan