People, people, people. This is no scam, and certainly not the 'Ultimate Steal'. It is simply good marketing. By making sure that MSO is the office suite that you know how to use best before you are in a position of authority in a corporate setting, guess which one you will counsel your company to spend uber-bucks on? Exactly. By spending a few cents right now, they know that they will reap big money down the road. They know that people will 'take advantage' of their offer. In fact, I wouldn't doubt that they are hoping that they will. They are probably targeting all of those who went to college or university for the simple reason that those people are the ones who will rise highest in any corporation and will be the ones making the buying decisions.

So don't feel guilty about dusting off that ten year old .edu address; they are quite happy to have you do so. As for me, my needs are simply, so I will stick with OpenOffice and Gmail and not burden my system with yet another leviathan that I don't need or want.