I don't think MS Office* has ever really held the low end though, no? That was held by Works back in the day, or even WordPad. And if it was Word, then it was most likely on some educational discount or hardware bundle, meaning not much revenue in the first place for Microsoft.

Lately Google Docs and Pages have filled those spots, but I suspect this giveaway is just shoring up or buffering their stronghold in the workplace.

Strongly agreed on the symbiotic relationship. I actually bought a full version of Win7 and VMWare Fusion just to run the "real" Office apps on my Mac. (Tellingly, the actual Office Suite was only $10, through the Home Use Program)

* EDIT: Changed "I don't think Microsoft has ever..."