Intuit sued for forcing upgrades

[thehorse13]

I've seen this done by many small time companies but what the old saying? Go after those with the deepest pockets?



http://techdirt.com/articles/20051005/0857224_F.shtml

Enjoy!

[rapier57]

While there may be legitimate reasons to update or upgrade bookkeeping software on an annual basis (tax and regulatory compliance, etc), I never liked Intuit's approach. Also, they were responsible for the demise of one of their competitors back in the day--my bookkeeping app of choice at the time.

To this day, I refuse to use Quicken on principle.

[kr5kernel]

Do you see people sueing microsoft for not supporting windows 95 or 98 anymore? A lot of people unfortunatly are still hooked to them. We use Quickbooks at my company, we were forced into upgrading...it wasn't a steep price change and they did offer an upgrade price that was substantially less.

[zencoder]

Originally posted here by kr5kernel
Do you see people sueing microsoft for not supporting windows 95 or 98 anymore? A lot of people unfortunatly are still hooked to them. We use Quickbooks at my company, we were forced into upgrading...it wasn't a steep price change and they did offer an upgrade price that was substantially less.

I don't see that happening anytime soon, but I like the way you think... Why *AREN'T* people suing MS?

I have not read the article, but I am familiar with the general problem... does Intuit render the software unusable (i.e. are they selling crippleware?) if the versions aren't up-to-date, or is it just a matter of "we won't support that version because it's 6.5 months old"? If it's the latter, might I suggest peachtree (right name?) or another app? I've never been a huge fan of the way Intuit does things...but they are one of the 'big dogs' and seem to use their clout as they see fit.

[Striek]

The problem is that Intuit is *intentionally* disabling features of a program, thereby forcing users to update and buy the new version. So yes, they render the software unusable at a time when they expect to have a new product available.

It's not simply a matter of discontinuing support; it bears no comparison to Microsoft not supporting Windows 95 anymore. Ford doesn't make parts for my 1992 Tempo any longer either. I don't complain. But if they programmed the computer to stop injecting fuel 10 years after the purchase date, I think I might just have a complaint or two for them.

And Intuit is not disabling minor features. They disable major ones. Like printing invoices.

[jinxy]

Some one brought up M$ and why havn't they been sued. They have been for a broken compression app in DOS 6 (think that correct)

Then charging for the upgrade with a fix.

Class action brought against them. Microsoft won the case.