Sure. Load Apple or Sun Solaris, then some freeware software app that allows you to view the MS formats. Not as easy as using MS Office, but you're hardly locked out even with a different O/S.
So what the purpose of having taxpayers pay for MS's Office suite? Since Office 12 is changing the file format, and this new MS file format has a userbase of zero, is new and untested, etc., why not use this situation to ask vendors to adhere to a common, open standard for saving information? What is the advantage to MA and MA taxpayers that you perceive in maintaining vendor lock-in with MS and their proprietary file formats and expensive upgrade cycle?