Is Planned Obsolescence Obsolete?

I was reading an article on USAToday's Tech section (not linking to it, sorry. I'm tired today!) about how Microsoft was working on Windows 7 and the next edition of MS Office. Why? What's wrong with the current versions? (XP, I mean. I've not used Vista so have no opinion about it).

That got me to thinking that may planned obsolescence doesn't work anymore. If we have to PAY someone money to persuade consumers that they need to buy a new product (marketing, PR, advertising) and another group of people to actually GET consumers to buy it (sales), maybe the world got along just fine without the new product in the first place.

I know that capitalism has been built on planned obsolescence, but that doesn't mean that we should be held captive to it. What would a new version of MS Office do for me that the current version doesn't already do a bang up job doing? For goodness sakes, I barely use all of the features in the current version of Word, why spend millions of dollar developing a new version.

And think of what else could be done with that millions of dollars, if we weren't using it to build a better mousetrap? Entirely new tasks that PCs haven't done before. Or ways to make computers more affordable so even more people can buy them. LOTS of things. But as long as our capital is otherwise occupied and it can't do those things. It can only ever do what's it's always ever done: build a different and persuade people it's better than the one they already have.

Maybe one good thing that will come from the current financial troubles will be more people thinking about why they're buying what they're buying. Get them to stop buying the newest version of something. Then companies will be forced to think of what they do with their money.

Boy it's a drag being an optimist sometimes.....