I was recently rung at work by someone from Sage, producers of some popular accounting software.

We're still running a version so old, you can hear their jaws drop when I tell them. It works, but ('und it is a big but') if you make a mistake while entering data, it is a complete and utter mess to undo it. I know this, having once spent 15 minutes happily entering figures into the wrong column – it took over two hours to undo.

The latest version is much better at this. OK, send us the upgrade.

It arrives, I read the licence before opening it and it wants me to contact Sage for an activation key now before it will work – hummm, a pain, but ok – and… again in two years time. If we don't or can't (eg because Sage has gone bust) then it won't let us access our accounts data. At all.

I've said 'get lost, take it back' to them. The chance of Sage going bust is not high, but if they do, the consequences are so bad that it's not worth the risk – where's the benefit for us in accepting this clause?

So… am I being unreasonable?

(And does anyone know of a program that will lie to a specified program about what time and date it is?)