Remember that version of Office that was all but incompatible with the one it was supposed to "upgrade" ?
MS got truckloads of negative press on that, but in the end users just grumbled and snatched up the new version anyway.
Why ?
One answer : who else sells an Office suite and has a name on the market ?
When you say PC today to the clueless Joe Anybody on the street, what is the single name he can think of ? Microsoft.
Yeah, I know about Linux, about Sun, about OpenOffice, Java, IBM and the rest. I read about it every day. You think everybody does ?
Ninty nine percent of PC users view their PC as a tool, the same as a wrench or a screwdriver. I don't have the faintest idea which is the best brand for a screwdriver, do you ? A technician does. And he probably laments the stuff sold in supermarkets, while he treasures whatever model he has and knows why.
People get to know very quickly just how much MS software can be frustrating, but they have no idea of what else exists. So they complain, and buy more MS software.
In short, it ain't gonna change anytime soon. Not unless a very powerful (rich) group gets together to make an alternative product and spend billions on marketing it.
After all, you complain about MS Money, but you didn't buy Quicken (it may be an even worse product, I don't know either of them). A simple search for "personal financial software" on Google gives a number of alternatives (including GnuCash - open source !!). Did you ask yourself what were the alternatives before buying MS ?
I'm not bashing you, even if YOU did check out alternatives and made a knowledgeable decision based on your personal situation, 99% of the market will just see MS Money and snap it up - because its a Microsoft product and outside of that, they don't even know what exists. And, more importantly, they don't know that they can search for other solutions.
Pascal.
