@ fraser

'Office is an application that runs on a computer, so in your car analogy Office would be similar to something that a car supports'

I don't agree. You could just as easily say that a car is an application running on the internal combustion engine platform.

The point is you don't need roads to run a car but because everybody uses the same roads, because there is no lock in, the industry as a whole is free to innovate to the benefit of the consumer. If the roads were proprietary it would be to the detriment of the industry and consumer and would only benefit the single manufacturer.

I know that office apps power cannot double every eighteen months but I also know that even so a 'new' version is pushed at us every couple of years even though there is nothing of great value to us and the reason most people upgrade is to avoid incompatibilities with earlier version.

In your hurry to defend of Microsoft (who are quite capable of defending themselves) you have ignored the main point.