Why Did Microsoft Fail

History

2006 – launch Microsoft Small Business Accounting apprx. USD 149.-

2007 – renamed to Microsoft Office Accounting, free Express Version, paid Professional version

Microsoft so far did not achieve a big market share but can gain some big clients as banks and computer makers, who implement the product as a standard, as their customers. On the internet good reviews about the application can be found

2009 – free Upgrade for all users

November discontinued

"We continually evaluate our business strategies to make sure we're working to meet the needs of customers, partners and shareholders. With that in mind, we have determined that existing free templates within Office used with Excel was a better option for small businesses, and the Microsoft Dynamics ERP products were appropriate for mid-range organizations,”

Intuit after this provides a free conversion tool that transfers small business accounting data to QuickBooks products.

Failure

good product but addressed to wrong people

“Microsoft made the mistake of assigning its accounting program to the Office product group” AccountingWeb 2009

technically sophisticated, would have been better in the Microsoft Dynamics category for larger businesses

“It was the right product at the wrong time. It was quite complex to use and set up and nobody was interested in another traditional accounting application...” Xero UK managing director Gary Turner” (ex Pegasus and Microsoft Dynamics), Nov 2009

Microsoft does not record the drawback of the product due to decrease in sales. Therefore we look at the broader picture:

Due to the economic crisis, consumer spending decreased. Also Microsoft was a victim and announced to lay off employees in early 2009. In summer 2009 it went through the worst fiscal years since the company went public. It seems obvious that the companies did not want to experiment with new things and rather focus on their core business:

Microsoft was developing Windows 7 and put...