I worked for a year as a software developer at a company that made educational products. In many ways it was a good company, but I was frustrated by what I considered substandard quality in their software products. It wasn't that they didn't care at all about quality, but the nature of the education market tended to encourage us to cut corners on quality.
Most educational software is used by students and teachers, but purchased by administrators. The administrators making the buying decisions compare competing products according to price and feature lists. Therefore, we were encouraged to match and exceed the feature count of the competition in order to get sales. If the new features introduced a few bugs or made the user interface awkward, that was less of a problem than not getting the features out in time for the academic year buying cycle. The buyers might never use the product enough to experience the problems. Other commercial software developers have similar struggles with the balance of more features, meeting market windows, and maintaining good design and quality. However, I believe this problem is exacerbated in the educational market by the gulf that separates those who buy from those who use the software.
Most educational software is used by students and teachers, but purchased by administrators. The administrators making the buying decisions compare competing products according to price and feature lists. Therefore, we were encouraged to match and exceed the feature count of the competition in order to get sales. If the new features introduced a few bugs or made the user interface awkward, that was less of a problem than not getting the features out in time for the academic year buying cycle. The buyers might never use the product enough to experience the problems. Other commercial software developers have similar struggles with the balance of more features, meeting market windows, and maintaining good design and quality. However, I believe this problem is exacerbated in the educational market by the gulf that separates those who buy from those who use the software.