Bend Weekly Community Forums

[brent4745]

I'm curious, how come Microsoft Word is such a huge popular word editing software even though their are clones of Microsoft Word and its functionality, but free at the same time? I'm curious on why don't companies or average users just download the free word processor instead of forking X amount of dollars?

[Mark]

I think people trust microsoft. They may think that spending some money getting a better software is better than downloading a freeware program which may create problems while doing some important work.
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[Josh]

Probably because it is much user friendly than the other word processors (free ones). I prefer it because it comes with Microsoft Frontpage which I use frequently to design my websites.

[JoeRiley]

Yes, people trust the commercial product (even when it comes from Microsoft) and in general it is a better product than the freebies. Sit in front of OpenOffice for a while, then go back to Word and see which you like more.

Same goes for people who say The Gimp is as good as Photoshop. No way, no how, it doesn't compete. I wish it could, but sadly it isn't as good.

[Freak]

Commercial products are way better than the freebies. Whether you compare Photoshop with GIMP, CuteFTP with CoreFTP, PhpBB with vB, in every case the commercial product is better and trusted by most users.