Is Microsoft Software Expensive?

This weekend I was reading a few comments at todoUMPC forum where somebody was criticizing Microsoft software pricing. The argument was something like “You can buy a laptop for 300 dollars but Microsoft OS will cost you around 200 dollars  and if you buy Office you will end paying around 400 dollars more, for a total of 600 dollars, twice what you have paid for your hardware”. Coincidentally, Paul Thurrott has posted a very good article about this same topic where he says that this argument is completely false because in reality the cost of such setup could cost you as little as 150 dollars and for sure never near 600 dollars.

You can read the whole article here.