Until 30 April 2006 you can buy Microsoft Small Business Accounting for $100 off the retail price
Microsoft is making another effort to get people away from paper based accounting or, more importantly for Microsoft, competitors like Quicken.
Until 30 April 2006 you can buy Microsoft Small Business Accounting for $100 off the retail price – this is an ‘instant saving’ not one of those annoying mail-in rebates but the deal is only if purchased at Best Buy, CompUSA, Office Depot, Staples, OfficeMax or Amazon.com. Buried in the details you can imply this is a US offer only – though a similar offer may be made in other countries in the future.
Amazon is not one of the retailers mentioned neither in the Microsoft announcement nor in the downloadable flyer on Microsoft’s own web site. However the Amazon logo is listed in one place we noticed. Sure enough on Amazon you can find SBA with a $110 discount (not the $100 elsewhere)
Another $30 off
The dreaded mail-in rebate is also used in the form of another $30 off. Like all similar offers, assuming that all the paperwork is submitted exactly correctly, mail doesn’t get ‘lost’ and the planets are in alignment you might get a check sometime before the next ice age.
The net result of these offers is that a product that retails for US$179.99 can be had for $49.99 or less depending on whatever other discounts are offered by a retailer (eg $39.99 net from Amazon).
Dell offer
Dell is making a similar offer if you buy SBA bundled with a new computer. Though the offer isn’t explicitly mention on the web page used in the announcement http://www.dell.com/sba the discount is shown when you click on one of the ‘Customise It’ buttons to see details of the hardware / software bundle.
Free support for a year
On top of all that Microsoft is offering “one year of free, unlimited personal support begins the day of product registration and includes – but is not limited to – assistance with installation, product functionality, technical questions and migration tools “.
What makes SBA interesting is the integration with Microsoft Office. You can link your accounting and customer data with Word 2003, Excel 2003 and Outlook 2003. Sadly in the case of Outlook 2003 you need the uninspiring and limited Business Contact Manager add-in.
