Probably americans can buy all the software they want and it costs to them less than they spend on dinner in restourant. But for some people not so lucky to born in developed country and rich parents, the software costs are too high. For example MS Office Enterprise will cost me about 2 years of income. And none want to use inferior alternatives. Yes, I can use Open Office and I like OOo, but I also like to have both MS Office 2007 Enterprise and OOo on my computer. If OOo will have problems with some docs, I will use the MS Office with the sucky ribbon.
You might want to consider looking for a technet subscription, in 'non-developed' countries MS usually throws it in free if you ask them nicely and say that you are a starting developer on 'their' platform. With that subscription you can pretty much download every piece of mainstream software that MS has ever produced and get 10 official full commercial usable product keys, per product version. Though after three years or so they probably going to require payments, for renewed subscriptions (your keys will continue to work).