Why is Microsoft Office online for free?

I did a Google search on the word "free" and got 7,500,000,000. That is
about two frees for every man, woman and child on the planet. Some
notable free products on the Internet are Adobe Reader, OpenOffice.org,
Google Earth, RootsMagic
Essentials, (you might not realize it, but Google Search learns from
your previous searches and produces results consistent with those
previous searches), QuickTime 7 Player, and on and on and on. So why
would a company that makes zillions of dollars selling complicated
software programs suddenly decide to give away their products for free?

The answer is extremely complex. One of the concepts I have been
thinking about recently is ownership. My past posts have talked about
topics from who owns the genealogy companies to who owns genealogy in
general. I think the first question that should be asked is whether or
not anything is actually free? The Web has 15 different definitions of
the English word "free." (see image above) In the sense used here, the
best definition is "complimentary: costing nothing; "complimentary
tickets"; "free admission."" I would submit that nothing on the
Internet is free. Think about it. Do you spend any money to obtain
Internet access? What about the cost of the computer? What about the
connection fee? What about the cost of the electricity to run your
computer/monitor/network connection? What about the time you spend at
the computer?

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