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Comment by Bjartr | Hacker News Reader

If they only offered one tier, it would be Office Professional, at a price that made sense for most businesses, so they can recoup the cost of building and providing ongoing support for the product. This would absolutely price a huge number of people out from getting Office for personal use.

So, no, I don't think there are a lot of people upset that there exists an Office product they can afford.

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Even if they offered an affordable ultimate Office package with everything, they'd recoup the development costs and even profit. This is not about "recouping costs", it's about market segmentation. It's about figuring out how much each group is willing to pay and then charging exactly that. If they could, they'd call customers and figure out their net worth before quoting them a price.

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/12/15/camels-and-rubber-...

> this business about segmenting? It pisses the heck off of people.

> People want to feel they’re paying a fair price. They don’t want to think they’re paying extra just because they’re not clever enough to find the magic coupon code.

I don't know a single normal person who's ever bought Office anyway. Their real customers are corporations, since they have money and can actually be sued for copyright infringement if they use Office without licensing it. Microsoft should simply give it away to normal people and charge corporations for it.

> Even if they offered an affordable ultimate Office package with everything, they'd recoup the development costs and even profit.

Mind sharing the development & support cost numbers, and the sale numbers for the Office suite that you're basing that statement on? If not, maybe a Fermi calculation to show that it's a reasonable statement?

Why do you suppose that? Surely there are many many more customers who can afford cheaper individual/student licenses.

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