I agree. OpenOffice is a standard built in software for word processing and is on most flavors of linux. If you were to download Ubuntu or knoppix or anything similar , it is already installed. It also works on x86 machines (your windows based) and it does the job fine...if i had to i would only use it to read and write basic stuff.. otherwise formatting stuff is a pita especially if you are used to MS products....Bill Gates is rich for a reason.