One out of five people who purchase QuickBooks don't end up using it, Kiran Patel, EVP and general manager of Intuit's Small Business Group, told attendees at Intuit's annual Investors' Day yesterday. Patel made the point to show how much revenue Intel could generate if it can pick up more of these users and those who bail on other Intuit products.

That rate implies there are many thousands of users who leave the software sitting on their shelves. For the year ended July 31, Intuit sold 1.6 million QuickBooks units, along with providing 224,000 free Simple Start activations.