[pcharles]

I hear the same thing from LaTeX users.
However, I believe its important to pick the software that works for your situation rather than simply trying to stick it to the man. Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac is a wonderful productivity suit, regardless of how I feel about Microsoft as a company, and I find it does what I want (Scientific and teaching documents) with less fuss than the current version of Pages. I have purchased every copy of the Keynote/iWork series since inception because I get it dirt cheap through the university, but I still cannot drag myself away from Word and Powerpoint because I find myself missing the features of those applications.

[Gatesbasher]

It seemed like IBM's complete hardware dominance in the "enterprise" environment (does anybody know who invented this idiotic term?) couldn't possibly be broken, either; but it was, and looking back, it seemed like it happened overnight. And all the "analysts" failed to predict that, too.

[sEaMoNkeY]

I can't stand using MS office 2004. I just hate it!!! I haven't bought iWork yet, I've been putting it of for a long time. I've been using NeoOffice, which is good but doesn't have a good presentation program. I've heard that Numbers and Keynote are great, but I haven't heard many good things about pages. I have used Keyote a little and loved. It was much better than PowerPoint. I'll guess I'll get iWork eventually, but for now, I'll have to do with NeoOffice for now.

[BradPDX]

The only strong reason for keeping Office 2004 (or getting Office 2008) is to have brain-dead compatibility with the countless MS Office documents out there. This is without a doubt a bit of circular logic, but that is exactly what keeps the MS boat afloat.
I have Office 2004 and am running the trial version of iWork '08. I like iWork very much and would happily use it for all that I need as it would work fine. But I have thousands of Word documents that must be accessed and edited as well as collaborations with others. Shifting 100% to iWork would place a burden upon them and me.
My wife thinks of all word processors as "Word". My kids are totally agnostic and switch freely between NeoOffice, OpenOffice and MS Office without thinking. I find Pages refreshing, while my wife gets confused because she has only ever used Word on Windows and can't think outside that box.
For now my likely solution is to postpone an upgrade to Office 2008 until proven necessary, and use Office 2004 for compatibility reasons. Oh yeah - I can still write my own damn stuff in Pages!

[recording]

Sorry to be a jackass, but is this a major news bulletin? iWork isn't Office? Well yah-uh!
"I loved Word 5.1a"
You said it! Best word processor ever. I use 2004 because it reads all the various formats I deal with and doesn't require me to start Classicwhich is on my G5 but not on my MBP anywaybut working in it isn't nearly seamless as 5.1a.
The only feature I use that's not in Classic is discontiguous selection (command-clicking).

[lwdesign]

As a graphic designer I rarely use MS Office as a productivity tool. In fact, it's almost exclusively used to open files I get from Windows-using clients. Once I extract the data, I'm out like a shot and back into Adobe's Creative Suite apps.
I occasionally am called upon by clients to create letterhead in Word, and have frequently run into completely unsolvable headaches when it comes to page formatting (ever try to put an address at the bottom of page one and only page one, and have it stay there?) despite many calls to MS tech support and other MS experts.
I think MS Office survives in the business world for one major reason: Years and years of documents have been created in Word, Powerpoint and Excel, and users don't have any alternatives that will reliably open these legacy docs. About 95% of the business users I've ever worked with (Mac and Windows) have at best about a 10-20% understanding of any of the programs in Office. The juggernaut of legacy documents created in Office apps keeps sales rolling along because "it's all we've ever used".
If someone could come up with a suite of programs that was 100% compatible with opening and displaying Office apps, yet was a bit cheaper and easier to use, I think you'd see mass defections from Office. However, MS still holds the high ground, as all they need to do is change their format slightly (gosh they just did that) making it difficult for Office wannabe's to keep up.