$149.00 clams is still a ripoff when you can get superior quality software in most of the major GNU/Linux Distros, use Ubuntu 8.06 at home CentOS5 at work. As far as OpenOffice goes I am writing a doctoral dissertation in Writer, MS Office 2007 from 2003 was too much of a change so if I am forced to relearn a suite I might as well get open to ODF (OASIS). The dissertation is heavily technical, lots of equations, figures, charts and its handling it well. Cross Referencing is great, auto-numbering, outlining, bibliography import from the database....I am sold, OO is getting better in leaps and bounds. BTW using v2.4 (haven't even seen v3.0 yet). In fact given the stability and "it just works" bliss of GNU/Linux, I'd REQUIRE M$ to PAY ME that amount to just run their crap with all of the Patch Tuesdays, malware, BSOD, incompatibilities and other headaches.