"Intuit strikes again," wrote one reader. " I just received an e-mail from Intuit stating that 'on April 30, 2005, your Do-It-Yourself Payroll service will no longer function' unless I upgrade to a newer version. I understand that software can't be supported indefinitely but there are two factors here that make this seem less acceptable than normal. 1) It's too soon. The software will be less than 3 years old. Compare that to Windows 98 which has been supported now for about 5-6 years and which the public has persuaded Microsoft to continue for another couple of years. 2) The payroll service is a profit center for Intuit! This isn't free support they are dropping. They charge a hefty fee for it! Are they saying they have so few QB2002 customers it's no longer profitable? I don't think so! Guess we need to form an open-source group and start writing a replacement! This company has been causing grief long enough!"

The Do-It-Yourself Payroll service costs $169 a year and is the successor to the tax table service we've watched Intuit use to force QuickBooks customers to pay for a former feature of the program. Those who wish to continue to use QB 2002 to generate their payroll will therefore have no choice but to upgrade. Do-It-Yourself Payroll for QuickBooks 2000 and 2001 customers is due to be retired on April 30, 2004.

What is more, according to Intuit's sunset policy, payroll subscribers must upgrade by the sunset date "in order to receive the full 12 months of your Payroll subscription." In other words, even though you've paid for a full year of the payroll service, you must upgrade or lose the remaining months. That is downright nasty.

Even readers who were aware of Intuit's sunset policies expressed resentment over the tone of this latest e-mail. "All this sanctimonious baloney about how 'we are doing this as part of an ongoing effort to provide high-quality support' makes me sick," wrote one offended QuickBooks customer. "How does cutting off all support provide us with better support? Then they have the gall to say that this is their way of saying 'thank you' for being a valued QuickBooks Do-It-Yourself Payroll customer."

Well, this is Intuit's way of saying thank you to its valued QuickBooks customers, and it has been for years. QuickBooks customers, you have a choice. You can see the light, or you can ride off into the sunset.