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Open Office has seized control of the document suite. Any day now Microsoft is going out of business, and the GIMP is about to destroy Photoshop...

Bottom line is if there is a real market for something and someone makes a better product.

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Your analogy sucks and you could have easily fixed it: "If Microsoft gave Office away, destroyed the competition, then killed Office..."

Google killed Reader and trust.

My comparison is simply that someone built a solid product and gave it away. Yes, people still pay hundreds of dollars for the same software when Open/Libre Office will work for most people.

The difference is that Google gave away access to the product, while Open Office and The GIMP gave away the product. If Open Office dies (like it almost did in the LibreOffice fiasco), you can grab its source code, recompile it, and keep on working. When Reader dies, you have nothing.

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