What is the retail market share for U.S. accounting software packages?

At the moment, and for many years previously, Intuit's QuickBooks owns
the retail market for US accounting software packages.  Depending on
the source, its US retail market share is between 74% and over 85%. 
PeachTree by Sage Software is a very distant second, and MYOB is an
extremely distant third.  I was unable to locate specific market
shares for those products, so I provided their customer counts.  These
are potentially inflated and definitely include customers who have
bought software other than accounting software.  Microsoft has just
entered the market with Small Business Accounting 2006, but it is so
new that I was unable to locate any figures indicating how it was
being received in the marketplace.

Gartner is currently planning to release a study of market trends in
small business accounting in North America in the fourth quarter of
2005.  While the report will probably be expensive, I would expect it
to be reported upon in the media, and a free summary may be made
available by Gartner.

"Small and Midsize Businesses North America Cluster Research" by Mika
Yamamoto Krammer, Gartner (September 30, 2005)
http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=104620

Sincerely,

Wonko

Sources:

"As a result, Intuit has an overwhelming 74% market share at retail
and 3 million customers."

"How to Face Off Against Microsoft" by Sara Lacy with Jay Greene,
Business Week (August 25, 2005)
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2005/tc20050825_8432_tc024.htm?chan=sb

"Intuit?s QuickBooks accounting software controls the market.
According to Intuit, its product accounts for more than 85 percent of
U.S. retail sales for small-business accounting software and is used
by 3 million businesses."

"Microsoft Expands Accounting Software Arena" by Shane Cleveland,
Vancouver Business Journal (September 23, 2005)
http://www.vbjusa.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=154&Itemid=21

"Small Business Accounting 2006. It took Microsoft about four years to
feel itself comfortable on the ERP market before it decided to create
its own small business package, targeted to take over market share
from QuickBooks, MYOB, PeachTree."

"Microsoft Moves to Small Business Accounting/Retail Market-stakes and
thoughts" by Andrew Karasev, Atlascopy.com (2005)
http://atlascopy.com/related-articles/microsoft-moves-to-small-business-accounting-retail-marke.htm

"More than 2.4 million* North American small and medium-sized
businesses currently rely on Sage Software applications."

"Corporate Fact Sheet" Sage Software (2005)
http://www.sagesoftware.com/newsroom/fact.cfm

"MYOB develops and delivers award-winning software, services and
support for more than 500,000 businesses...."

"Company Overview" MYOB (2005)
http://www.myob.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1111637529685&pagename=MYOB%2FPage%2FSubsectionPage&site=en_AU&c=Page

Thanks much - appreciate the quick and thoughtful response!