Microsoft, losing market share one at a time

JA was asking to use 'Microsoft' this afternoon, and it turned out she wanted to use Powerpoint for something school-related.

Obviously, we have LibreOffice and she knows how to use its presentation program on Ubuntu, but not everyone is so lucky.

She was amazed - and more than a bit outraged - that paying £70 for Windows 7* doesn't even get you an office suite. Instead you need to pay £89.99 (student price for Office Home 2013 - 2010 is £10 less, but support for that will end before too long) or £199.99 (full price). Or, if you don't care about being able to edit your documents if you don't pay an unknown amount every year, £79.99 for a one year subscription.

She doesn't understand why anyone pays that.

Thank you to the people behind LibreOffice, Ubuntu, and Debian GNU/Linux, who mean we don't have to.

* _{The only non-trial version of Windows on anything here is Vista, which will no longer run the latest Office. I forget the last time it was started.}