No, these are competitive products.
The main issue here is how long can you expect to be allowed by M$ to use
this expensive software.
The question is particularly important for M$ applications, because for the
moment (not for too much longer I hope), M$ sell not only applications, but
also de facto monopoly but ephemeral operating systems that seem to be
designed to render the applications unsusable within a very short space of
time.
Furthermore, I recall that some years ago M$ were accused of adjusting their
Windows OS in such a way that WordPerfect for Windows did not function in a
satisfactory manner. I don't know what was the truth or the outcome of this
affair, but respectable suppliers should not place themselves in a position
whereby they are exposed to such accusations.
In my opinion, a reasonable lifetime for an application would be ten years,
possibly with a modest fee to be paid for updates.
These arguments are probably irrelevant to Vista, which is a constant source
of trouble for numerous applications, and I can't believe that all of these
applications are as badly designed as M$ would have us believe.
Regards
