The state of play in accounting software

Accounting software packages were nice regional monopolies or oligopolies. Compliance differences meant that they did not compete much across borders. There was one or two in most markets. In some markets these were segmented so there were very simple packages for one or two person businesses, then packages which became more complex as the business became larger.
The quasi-monopolies were pretty good businesses, high incremental cash flows but not much growth. In other words they were targets for private equity.
Many got bought and levered up. In Europe many more got hoovered up by Sage (a London based roll-up of accounting and payroll packages). For instance SolvAxis - which was the leader in Switzerland - was bought into the Sage juggernaut.
The exception was the US where the leader (Intuit) was too big and too valuable to be taken private or levered up.
So around the world you have lots of indebted (and hence weakened) competitors and one super-solvent, super strong competitor in the US (Intuit). Sage is only modestly levered, but a roll-up. It is a strong competitor but nowhere near as powerful as Intuit.gg