Intuit's directors apparently liked what they saw in the performance of CEO Brad Smith as they approved a nearly 19-percent raise in base salary, effective for the year ending April 30, 2011, and a 46 percent increase in bonus awarded for fiscal 2010. Although bonus and salary often have less value than stock and option awards as part of executive compensation, it was a good result for Smith, who completed his second complete fiscal year in April. And performance-based bonuses for all executives were generous.

Microsoft ended an initiative that it appeared to torpedo from the day it hit the market by announcing that it will stop sales of Office Accounting, originally known as Small Business Accounting, on November 16. It marked yet another Microsoft failure in the low-cost financial application market and a sign that even Microsoft can't move a significant share of the market from QuickBooks. Microsoft will support the installed base for five years. Office Accounting had very little visibility in the market over the last two years.