I really can't see that there must or shoudl be any "upgrade" deiscounts. Of course, software companies can do so if they want, just as for example some care dealers do, but it is up to them of course.

Driving previously loyal customers away seems to be Intuit's corporate game plan and they apparently attempt to "make up" the lost revenue by hosing their rapidly shrinking customer base more and more - thus further reducing the base and accelerating the defections.  I would suggest that this is such an incredibly stupid business plan that it can only ultimately lead to a death spiral and would suggest that anyone holding Intuit stock either dump it immediately or if they have enough shares and care enough about what the company once was and its future survival, vote to replace the current board and management team.

This may be the ultimate way to vote not with your feet but with your shares.  I would suggest that other software vendors who utilize similar tactics should be treated similarly and perhaps we can bring innovation and growth back to the Tech market place.  

Our failure to do so will continue to lead us down a path that throws away the tremendous technological advantages this nation has enjoyed, as the monopolists like Microsoft and the monopolist wannabes like Intuit continue to use sunsetting and subscription software and software as a service (whether openly or de facto) as a replacement for being able to develop new and compelling products.

I hope Microsoft's shareholders take a look at the rapidly shrinking market shares of Intuit and realize that there but for the grace of a not so certain monopoly goes Microsoft.  If Microsoft and Intuit would spend 1/10th as much on real innovation and product improvement as they do on Product Activation, Sunsetting and destroying their customer relationships we would have software that actually works right, was not filled with security holes (isn't it comforting to know that Microsoft is already issuing security patches for the beta version of Vista, that "brand new, security built in from the bottom up", version of Windows that is apparently subject to the same exploits as XP) and lacking in meaningful improvements.  

If Microsoft or Intuit wishes to improve their software, why don't they start with a goal of reducing the millions of lines of code, tightening the coding and making their new products faster and more efficient so that it does not require ever faster machines just to maintain the same unacceptable performance levels.

Just a thought from a reader who has been here since the beginning of the PC and has seen the software industry go from an exciting place where new products and whole new categories of products were always on the horizon to a "me too" environment where incrementalism rules and the concern is not giving people a reason to spend their money but rather figuring out how to force it out of them.  Some of you who were not there when WordStar begat WordPerfect begat Word, and VisiCalc begat Lotus 123 begat Excel and Quattro, etc., etc. may not remember or even be aware there was a time when every month it seemed whole new categories of software were being created, where small companies could come up with a new "Category Killer" product with real advantages over the competition and where the "Next Big Thing" was in fact a really "Big Thing" and not just a minor patch marketed as a whole new version.