>>Well, today, there are companies making a huge amount of coin in this area.
That's interesting.
I've been doing accounting sytems for a long time, and each day the number of accounting system vendors shrinks.
One annual meeting of accounting system vendors that used to have 300 attendees now has a dinner table of 15.
Basically, the "accounting problem" has been solved and knowing clients are moving their operational systems to industry-specific independent platforms loosely coupled to the accounting system.
There are several reasons for this trend. Among others,
-It circumvents the user license fee for the Accounting system (a big deal)
-It frees the operational system from what is often restrictive and outdated technology and lets the developer fit the solution to the problem.

We've been following this separation stragegy for several years and while not making "a huge amount of coin" we're making more than we would trying to sell and support the accounting system in this market.
While QB is hot, the mid and high Accounting System sales are moribund.
As one of my west coast colleagues likes to put it.."my biggest competition is DoNothing."
Most companies are happy with their basic accounting system.

In our mid-range market, support dollars are moving to things like BI, the Web, and industry-specific operational systems.
Times change, so we change.