They should make Office free. These days, more and more non-techie friends are starting to use OpenOffice on their own. While OO quality is no where near Microsoft Office's, OO writer and Powerpoint are good enough for simple usage. And people, don't make fancy PP anymore. They just need something that can read ppt and something they can play.
I used to buy office from like Word 2.0 up through Office 2007 or so but for the life of me I can't figure out why most people would need Office today. Like I said I'm out of touch but...
If I write docs for publication it's HTML.
If I write for correspondence it's email
If I write for product design it's probably a wiki. Something the entire team can edit.
I am in no way suggesting that people don't have legit uses for Office or OpenOffice. I am saying that I have not had a legit use for Office in 6+ years.
Those few times I need to make a sign for party or a few page letter Google docs works fine. Even presentations I've done in Google docs just fine. Spreadsheets work fine as well. They can even be scripted if you want to do crazy stuff.
Why would I want to install Open Office when I can access Google Docs from ANY machine, not just machines have have Open Office installed?
Especially the Hacker News crowd. Do you find you need Office or Open Office still?