Wow, I just paid $29.95 for 5 seats of Norton for a year on Amazon. If I can get MS office for $15.00, I'm definitly in!!!
I think you're saying that Norton is 50% more that MS Office, not sure though.
If so, my non-misguided conclusion, is that you're just another Microsoft fanboy, making up...
Personally, I don't use any Microsoft products other than the operating system. I use Norton, Libreoffice, Dropbox, etc. Using other than Microsoft, is just an added layer of security protection, in my opinion.