Anecdata: most of the SMBs I know are using web/cloud-based accounting products, and like it for varying reasons (not having to manage / upgrade the software, easy to collaborate with their accountant) but a major one is being able to access their accounts from anything with a web browser.

As a counterpoint, my wife runs her own bookkeeping business and pretty much all of her clients are using Quickbooks on Windows workstations, with no real desire to try anything new. I know a couple people myself that are using cloud-based accounting products but they seem to be the exception. In both cases they are tech businesses, which perhaps makes them more open to trying something new than a typical small business.

Can you even buy a new Quickbooks desktop license now, I got the impression it had all moved to the cloud.

Yes, they don't make it real obvious, but if you look for Quickbooks Desktop you can find the versions you install instead of the SaaS.

I'll take a guess and say that these are all older businesses.

Businesses that started before the advent of cloud software will continue to use QuickBooks because that's what the owners know, and why fix something that isn't broken? But newer businesses that started in the last few years will be much more likely to use cloud software because it's so much more convenient.

A lot of new businesses (most?) just go with what their accountant and/or bookkeeper tells them to use. A lot of accountants continue to prefer Quickbooks.

One of the accountants I know considers herself computer savvy (she's not, but that's a different topic) and she's pretty young (30s) and she insisted I build her a server for her business to run Quickbooks off of. She won't trust a cloud solution, or even a remotely hosted server. Some of this fear seems to be based on the seminars she goes to which are either held by or attended by FBI special agents. They are pretty good at telling you all the ways you may be hacked, and precious little practical advice on how to avoid that while staying sane.

There are non-technical reasons to prefer locally hosted accounting software. Privacy is one if them.

Do you mean privacy, or security? It would be a massive breach of trust if SaaS accounting products were harvesting your business data a la Facebook...

What about harvesting your data to the IRS?

And there's the catch-22: how do you access the web when the desktop OS's are all gone? Tablets and phones don't cut it and there isn't a single stable desktop OS that hasn't been getting progressively worse for the last 5 years.

I don't agree with the premise that phones and tablets won't cut it for this, but if you need a hassle-free OS for accessing the web then ChromeOS is it.

They still do 'the work' in Excel

Windows 10 is really difficult for businesses entrenched in Windows to deal with.

The work that you need to do in order to unwind from legacy Windows stuff like fat apps, IE-optimized websites, and legacy Office-based workflows makes it pretty easy to move to an iPad to Google, etc. The only thing that Microsoft has going for them is that every other vendor is also fucking up client computing in different ways.

I know I'm in a minority here, but having used every windows since 3.1, IMO windows 7 was the absolute pinnacle of windows design, and from a ux perspective I think the best desktop os period (could still be improved, there's definitely individual features that are better in other OSes). I really wish they had stuck with the UX/design and mostly just improved performance/added useful stuff rather than throw it all out and start over.

You're not as big of a minority as you think. Windows 7 is still the most used desktop OS by quite some margin. MacOS hit its pinnacle at about the same time (Snow Leopard, Summer 2009).

I've seen problems with websites as IE versions are upgraded, but that happens with or without Windows 10.

I haven't seen any issues with apps though, so I have to dispute this claim. We just moved 5,000 employees from Windows 7 to 10, and it went far smoother than anyone really expected - everything just works. It's a wide range of apps too, everything from in-house WPF apps to CAD and engineering software.

Janky enterprise crap optimized for IE <whatever> is one big example. The other is old Office stuff like Access databases or workflows dependent on conversion of old file formats. (Last year Office 365 ProPlus purged legacy DBase import for a few months)

IE11 support will go away at some point. Many of those apps are now being updated to work on Chrome -- I know of a few large shops that aren't testing IE or Edge anymore for internal apps!

I do agree that they did a heroic effort on making the update process incredibly reliable. Most non-prehistoric applications transition seamlessly.

Note that I personally equate Windows 10 and the subscription "Office 365 ProPlus". The layers of complexity are astounding. I present to you what I call the "Office 365 ProPlus Build Decoder Ring" - https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Version-and-build-n...

Windows 10 itself has about 8-10 releases that an enterprise needs to think about. Transition from release to release has gotchas and additional Windows-Office gotchas. (For example, the way Office authenticates changes in certain builds) (See: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows-10/release-inf...)

Haha. I'm living this right now, but we're getting there. We'll have a few thousand PCs on Win 10 soon and will finally deprecate IE8 for Chrome :p. I'm dead set against using iPads for anything serious although I keep losing that battle.

Agreed. They are undermining the areas where they had most strength. It seems rich desktop apps are being pushed aside in favor of the app store model. For new stuff we now usually choose web over WPF.

I see iPads everywhere at smaller restaurants. Especially in food courts. I've even seen a few Android tablets (including at one upscale food hall in Plano, TX). Not just restaurants, too; independent stores are picking up tablets at a huge rate. If a store has opened in the last three years or so, they're probably using a tablet as a cash register.

Tablets are rapidly taking over the market for cash registers.

Many of those tablets are actually running W10.

There's a lot of these about. The license cost reduction for "tiny device" (small screen, <=32GB flash, <=2Gb RAM) has caused them to proliferate. In some ways they're the real replacement for WinCE.

Sources?

Personal anecdote of what I see being sold on consumer stores here in Germany.

Or the restaurants or cocktail bars that happen to have tablets instead of paper menus.

They started with iPads, but as their chains got bigger they moved to a mix of Android and W10 tablets.

Source, personal anecdote getting out of the menu app into the OS.

I guess that's just a difference between Germany and the US (or at least Texas).

Most of the tablets I've seen in stores and restaurants are actual iPad hardware, the virtual keyboard used when entering information is the iOS keyboard, and the Square app follows the Apple design guidelines.

And the rare occasions when I encounter an Android tablet, I recognize it from the virtual keyboard. Case in point: the food hall I mentioned in my above post. When you buy something, it asks you if you'd like to enter your phone number so they can text you when your order's ready. When I chose to enter my number, I instantly recognized the keyboard for that as the Android 4.x keyboard.

I agree in that iPad are being perceived as too expensive here in EU, notably because of the advantaging EUR/USD conversion rate that Apple don't really follow when it come to pricing it's product.

On top of that shop owners tends to rely more on local vendors for cash machines, and many of those still heavily built atop of the Windows ecosystems. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if W10 surpassed Android for this kind of appliance. Here in France I often see waiters use device with old school stylus on UI with really small buttons. I'm not even sure what OS this is to be honest.

I'm pretty sure all the iPads I see are not. In all honesty, I can't recall the last time I saw a Windows laptop in the wild.

Come to Europe, Africa or Asia continents, you will see Windows laptops everywhere.

Or as alternative go to a local games developer meeting group.

There were plenty of them in San Jose at GDC, from what was shown on the live streams.

Windows is not going away. it's just been downgraded from primary strategy at Microsoft

As a long time developer on the Microsoft stack (approaching 20 years now?), it seems to me like this makes Microsoft and it's services less relevant and more easily replaceable in the long run. It's clear Azure and the related services are very lucrative, but I feel this is because of the prevalent use of Windows, not in spite of it.

well, as a long time developer in financial enterprise space (18 years) I think MS made a lot of right moves already since Nadela took over. betting all your eggs on Windows dominance proved to be a faulty (and dangerous) strategy especially since a lot of enterprise started using Linux / open source. For example I know a very major hedge fund that went from Windows everywhere to using every open source database they can get their hands on. The whole container strategy is just much easier with linux as well. it's a very hard battle to win. one big co vs every startup betting on OS.

Microsoft could kill Linux's foothold in the server + SMB space right now just by simplifying licensing.

Get rid of CAL's. Charge a fixed price for a certain # of simultaneously running Windows instances, no matter how you run it. Even charging an ongoing subscription for this would be acceptable. Simplify the licensing situation for SMBs wanting to run an on-premise redundant systems, without needing diagrams to explain the difference between running, standby, CAL's, virtualization, etc.

If you're developing software for a platform, trying to figure out how to optimally license that platform should be the least of your concerns, so you can focus on your product.

This is blatantly false. You're assuming that people only use Linux because they don't want to pay or deal with licensing complexities of Microsoft which is not the case.

That's not the only reason. If the Windows platform brings more to the table than Linux, then for a developer that would weigh more heavily than the complexities of licensing it.

I've supported several Windows-centric SMB accounting platforms, including QuickBooks and trying to figure out the right way to license just Windows, in order to support High-availability or redundancy is headache-inducing at the SMB-sized server level.

>a lot of enterprise started using Linux / open source.

any major players? entire healthcare industry is married to microsoft, at least the big names. same for lots of major enterprises that i know of

Same here, but I don't see any rush to change those Windows desktops by something else, beyond eventually some Macs.

you're thinking about desktops. think servers/mobile. that's a highly competitive space you won't compete in by making windows 10% better every 2 years.

Currently Android seems to have lost the tablet war on consumer electronic shops.

People are either going for iPads, or hybrid laptops runnig W10.

Android devs are to blame, given the little effort to adapt phone apps to tablets.

>Currently Android seems to have lost the tablet war on consumer electronic shops.

And yet they still account for the majority of tablet sales.

>People are either going for iPads, or hybrid laptops runnig W10.

The W10 tablet market share is so low they barley even register. In fact, Microsoft Surface tablets aren't even visible on the following graph:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/276635/market-share-held...

Most statistics, don't classify Surface Pro and other full desktop 2-in-1 as tablets. Small blip for MS was there ARM tablet

I don't see how the Surface Pro could be classified as anything other than a tablet since that's what it is. The type cover keyboard is a $160 option. It's also losing money and there are rumors that their Surface line will be cancelled in 2019.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/10/04/surface/

citation needed

http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/worldwide

So what, if I find a source that contradicts your's would you just put yet another link?

I know what I see when I go into a store, travel across Europe and look around for what the other passengers are using.

If you feel vindicated by posting some random link asserting you are right, so be it.

Here's another link that contradicts your anecdotal stories:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/276635/market-share-held...

What you see and reality can be different. I am from third world i do not see much iPhone users at all. And from the link iPad does have commanding lead over android tablets.

i'm not posting a "random link" to prove you wrong. I googled around and saw a few sources all of which seem to agree on current market share, which made me genuinely confused by your comment.

actually, if you drill down to tablets, which the GP was referring to, the iOS has 2/3 market share.

http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/tablet/worldwide

In my experience... yes. At least in the Pittsburgh area, every food truck, small boutique, expo vendor, etc. that I've encountered has used Square and an iPad to handle payments.

For me, the experience is that it's harder to find an accounting software that is Windows-only. Pretty much many of those are running inside of a web browser. Your experience may vary depending on where you live however.

Anecdotal I know but my business employs 4 people and a few (including myself) are full time Linux users. I use Xero for our accounts and I'm very happy with it.

I own a small business and I run my accounting with FreshBooks, which I can easily use via my phone, iPad, or MacBook. I haven't used windows for 18 years. I'm probably an outlier, but it can be done.

It can be done but usually going Windows is the path of least resistance for most non tech users.

I can agree that windows can be the path of least resistance because of legacy business softwares. But please don't even start to argue that windows is more easy to use than an iPad.

For a lot of professional things windows (Or Mac or Linux) is better. For data entry a tablet is a real pain. I wouldn't want to do accounting on an iPad for example.

How is doing small business accounting on an iPad, with a keyboard, any different that doing small business accounting on a Surface? You tap on the screen where you want to put data and type. Also, when using FreshBooks, which is what my comment was about, once you set up your customers, line items, and rates, creating an invoice involves about five taps and maybe typing in the number of hours/quantity, if it differs from the default of 1. That's it. I'm not sure how Windows could possibly make that any easier.

How does "going Windows" make doing small business accounting easier?

You have a lot of mature software available for that task.

I am looking at small business accounting. What are your thoughts on FreshBooks?

Personally, I love it. It is easy to set up your logo, custom web portal, customers, line items, and rates. Once you've got that done, creating an invoice only takes about five clicks. FreshBooks also emails invoices and reminders for you, allows you to easily accept payments electronically, let's you send satisfaction surveys to your customers, and gives you a weekly report on how much you've earned, how much you've collected, and how much customers still owe you.

I evaluated a bunch of other products, like QuickBooks, Curdbee, etc. but always ended up coming back to FreshBooks and have been with them consistently since about 2010.

Their customer support team is also great. I've only had one or two issues with the system, but in each case, they were quick to respond and help me resolve the issue.

The hardest part of running a small business for me is collecting money from customers, and FreshBooks makes that easy. FreshBooks allows me to connect with my customers in ways I wasn't able to before and it has reduced the process of billing to just a few clicks I have to do once a week; allowing me to focus on the services I provide instead of data entry and invoice tracking.

I hope that helps.