Could Office Accounting be a real challenger to QuickBooks?

Last year, Microsoft introduced Small Business Accounting, its answer to QuickBooks and other small business accounting packages. They pushed it heavily to partners like me, and like me, many partners completely ignored it. It had a pretty limited feature set and seemed to get no traction in the CPA and banking communities.

Yesterday, almost completely out of the blue, Microsoft released Office Accounting 2007. The Express version is free, and the Professional version will cost only $149. (Differences between the versions are explained here.)

It’s hard for me to imagine a lot of companies switching from their existing business accounting packages over to the new Microsoft offerings, because once you’ve got an accounting package set up it’s a real bitch to change to something else. But start-up companies and young companies that are just now outgrowing Quicken or even less sophisticated systems might want to give the new software a look. Early reviews from CRN and PC Magazine indicate that Microsoft might have gotten it right this time.