Support for GST/VAT?

Andrew Greig AndrewLGreig at netscape.net
Wed Oct 29 21:03:20 CST 2003


Hey Hedley,

You work a couple of kms away from my residence.  How about I lend you a 
copy of "Under the Radar" and turn you into a true believer? If you want 
to get a handle on how strong the swing away from M$ is you need to 
subscribe to some news services that keep up to ddate with what is 
happening in the whole world, not just Bill's Empire.

Here is a snip from what I sent to Quickbooks, although I have 
communicated with MYOB as well in the past.  Either the Board or the 
developers or both have HUB disease (head up bum).

Hi Barry,

I read your reply to one of our members with interest.  It seems that 
the commercial realities escape you.  The commercial reality for Ford 
lies with Linux.  The commercial reality with the region of Extremadura 
in Spain (100,000 computers, lies with Linux).  But living in a Windows 
cocoon tends to make one complacent.  The 90's certainly belonged to the 
all-powerful monopoly which could thumb its nose at the DOJ.  But the 
commercial reality is that Microsoft is losing ground every day in every 
part of the world.  The noughties will not belong to Microsoft.  
Businesses cannot afford to trust their critical systems to Microsoft, 
security is becoming more important than ever.  Interestingly enough the 
site in England hosting Microsoft's information pages runs on Linux.  
When asked why the webmaster replied to this effect, "When things are 
this important there are only three possibilities ... Linux, and Linux 
and Linux"

The commercial reality for Quicken is that there are already Open Source 
competitors out there, and with functionality that you could not 
possibly achieve while still married to Microsoft.   Take SQL-Ledger for 
example, handles GST - no worries, fully configurable - of course.  Web 
interface - yes, runs on Apache the world's most popular Web server.  
This means the the CFO could access his company's data from anywhere on 
any platform.

There is GNUcash which is progressing daily and capable of running a 
smaller business, but development is in the open and it is moving along 
well.  GST - no worries it handles several tax scales.

The Canadian offering Quasar has been well received by the Australian 
Linux community, perhaps they don't care what you do, Quickbooks is no 
longer important to businesses that have progressed beyond the silicon 
ceiling imposed by MS.  Maybe, the fact that so little interest is shown 
in your attitude to Linux, is in fact an indicator that your product is 
no longer in their thinking, maybe they have moved on from you too.

In the final analysis, any board of Directors which neglects the 
opportunities afforded by the rise of Linux, is derelict in its duty to 
its shareholders.  In time past, if a board specified Microsoft, no one 
could hold them accountable if the wheels fell off.  The time is coming 
when shareholders will want the board to explain why they chose 
Microsoft, and jeopardised the security and functionality of the 
business systems.  I know and you know that MS do not produce good 
software, maybe its time that you did.

Frankly I could care less, because I don't use QuickBooks, but I did ... 
once.  BTW I think your QuickPayroll Pro is a great program, I would 
like to see a port of that.

Yours faithfully
Andrew Greig
Scoresby Vic

hedley_finger at myob.com.au wrote:

>MIchael:
>
>I am a technical writer. Porting to Linux would be initiated by marketing.
>I don't think that they would even know how to spell Linux, although
>someone high-up did look at Linux a couple of years ago and concluded 'Not
>yet'.  When Bill Wisse asked a similar question on the Moneydance list
>recently, this is how I replied.
>
>  
>
>



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