Does this explain the death of Office Accounting?

The whole proces for generating invoices/credit notes/quotes etc. in Microsoft Office Accounting relies (or should that be relied?) heavily on Word templates which use XML for inserting the fields from the database. This article makes me wonder if MOA's precipitate demise might have been triggered by M$'s wish to avoid such technology in one of its own products - or am I adding 2+2 and making 5?

The payroll aspect is also dead

What this article fails to mention (and M$ skirt around in their own FAQ) is that the on-lne add-on for calculating NI/PAYE etc. will be killed as of mid December (just before being needed for that month's wages!), so anyone using this for payroll has just one month of continued use - after that they need to find a new payroll solution! Great product lifecycle support from M$ :-(

Dave Harvey

Definitely the reverse Midas touch by BT - turning gold into Sh*t.

I used to use them a LOT - never ceased to amaze me that I could place an order at 18:00 and get it delivered (without even paying premium postage) by 09:00 the following morning.....until of course BT took over and started meddling....service went down, prices went up, and they became just another, mediodre web retailer.... And as many other have pointed out, don't BT realise how tainted their image is - not only amongst the general IT public, but espeically with anyone involved in healthcare IT who has seen how incompetently they've handled the National Programme fiasco!

Can I patent this?

"Using vaguely related patents to probe a competitors confidential business methods?" sounds like agreat idea - could I get a business process patent on it?