First, Gates & Co. has only itself to blame for the disappointing sales of Office X, in the opinion of many. Reader after reader said it was just too darn expensive at $400-plus. "That's half the price of an eMac!!!" wrote Richard Lenoce. "That's a lot of money for a glorified typewriter/calculator/picture-maker."
Lots of readers see Office's steep price as an attempt to gouge a captive market. So maybe they shouldn't be surprised when Mac-heads balk at the hefty expenditure. Andy McCann, who works at Morgan Stanley, suggests that Microsoft combine Word with personal-information manager Entourage and sell the bundle for $150. "Then they'd probably sell a huge number of copies," he writes.
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