Intuit Abandoning Quicken - No Discussion at Quicken Live Community?

Agreed. I keep a backup HD offsite in a safe deposit box (2 HDs...rotating), but I must admit that it gets 'rotated' not nearly as often as it should (not even close). I must do something about that one day soon.

The problem is, given Intuit's track record of looking out for itself (even at the expense of their own customers), how can we trust them to keep what is most vaulable to us? To them, it's a buck gained, to us, it can often be our livelihood or more. Trust is built, and although I've had no issues with Intuit lately, I've also not had reason to deal with them. I still have a sour taste in my mouth from past experiences with them. Trust Intuit? No, my old school leanings dictate that they must earn my trust. Their software is undoubtedly the best option for me (as it is now...), but if having Intuit manage my data for me is my only option, I'll figure something else out.

Mikel

The same technology that makes data access seamless to you, frequently makes the same data (i.e. your data) access seamless to others.

I think the idea is to vote with your dollars. Quicken is looking at this process as a business model. To say they don't care about their customers is true only that if they could get us to donate money without sending a product they would do it. So would your local barber or baker. I have never read of anyone breaking Quicken's encryption or hacking into Quicken to steal personal financial information. By hacking, I don't mean finding your password on a post it note.

I think Quicken provides a very secure platform with excellent functionality. I started doing my personal accounting in a spreadsheet (Lotus!) and would go back to it if I thought Quicken was any more of a threat than the bank's or brokerage firms themselves. One thing I like about MINT.COM is that it will notify you if there is a large transaction. Most of what I use Quicken for today is to make sure nobody is playing with my accounts.

I, too, use Quicken for a "quick check" overview of my finances.

What bothers me is the idea of keeping ALL my statements, and the associated access data, in one, online location. Currently, if one of my FIs gets hacked (knock one wood, it hasn't happened yet), I only have to deal with that one. Can you imagine the nightmare of having ALL your FIs getting hacked at the same time!

Then again, maybe there'd be no more of a threat than there is now.

________________________________________ I think the idea is to vote with your dollars. Quicken is looking at this process as a business model. To say they don't care about their customers is true only that if they could get us to donate money without sending a product they would do it. So would your local barber or baker. I have never read of anyone breaking Quicken's encryption or hacking into Quicken to steal personal financial information. By hacking, I don't mean finding your password on a post it note.

I think Quicken provides a very secure platform with excellent functionality. I started doing my personal accounting in a spreadsheet (Lotus!) and would go back to it if I thought Quicken was any more of a threat than the bank's or brokerage firms themselves.

One thing I like about MINT.COM is that it will notify you if there is a large transaction. Most of what I use Quicken for today is to make sure nobody is playing with my accounts.

________________________________________

Large transaction notification is available with the CC companies. I assume it is also available with banks, although I've not checked into that.

Mikel

I'm not receptive at all to the 'Cloud' concept. I can't imagine that they've plugged all possible security holes, and, of course, the bad guys will figure out a way to get through many that have been plugged. I imagine that, as time passes and technology advances, security technology will eventually manage to stay ahead of the thieves. The bad news is that likely, it will be a Big Brother event that will impact us in ways that neither we nor the thieves will consider positive.

One other cloud issue that occurs to me is that the marketeers will find a way to exploit it, all to our disadvantage and irritation.

Mikel

"Tim Conway" wrote in news:hkv41m$q1$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org:

I imagine the business model is not to sell software, but to get eyeballs to the web where they can more easily advertise and upsell you on Intuit web design, Intuit loans, etc.

scott s. .

That's probably the case. There is a lot of money being made in advertising on the web and Intuit would undoubtedly welcome the free exposure to their other products.

Or what if you are somehow not connected to the omniscient web? On a plane? Somewhere where you don't have excellent connectivity?

Or what if hackers manage to break into that site, or do any one of an number of other bad things? Instead of an individual's PC being compromised, EVERYONE's data is compromised.

I think that the "kids" pushing this web-only idea haven't spent enough time away from their lattes and $300 designer jeans.

-AH

Reminds me once when I was working for a medium-sized company that got acquired. The big company doing the acquisition was so out of ideas that they basically turned over the entire business unit to us, the acquirees, instead of firing most of us.

I suspect that Intuit is similarly out of ideas. That is what happens when you lose contact with your customers, because you basically hold them in contempt.

If only there was a viable competitor to Intuit, I would have stopped using Quicken (and TurboTax) years ago ...

-AH

I doubt it's an accident that there is no "viable competitor".

It's my assumption that most all customers - of any product - will switch to a better product ... if one exists. I surely would be one of those.

The more important question is: what is the reason people believe no such

If it's so simple to produce software that can compete with Quicken ... why has no one done it? Why is it that the software company with money to burn - failed to produce a competetive product. Why is that the "free software" movement has failed to provide a competetive product?

Those are largely rhetorical questions. The reason is: it isn't that easy.

In a free market system - such as that for personal financial software - those who believe a better product can be produced; must put up, or shut up.

Over the years, Intuit has established a relationship with many Financial Institutions. Until they (Intuit) open their proprietary file system to others (which won't happen), or FIs allow new companies to access their records, I doubt there will be any serious competition.

Most people these days seem to have little interest in frugality or other ways of carefully monitoring how their money is spent. When I tell someone that I can account for every penny of spending, income, net worth, etc..they are usually shocked.

You're assuming that there IS a business model, and not just a lemming-like rush to SaaS "because that's what everyone is doing these days."

-AH

Most hacking happens when they get your personal information and then call up and have the passwords changed. You know, the really secure stuff like your mother's maiden name and the last four digits of your social security number. With that, I can get into any account you have. Usually without an account number. Try calling up your bank's helpdesk and asking them to reset your password.

Remember when Sarah Palin had her email account hacked? They were able to reset her password by filling in answers to questions that are common knowledge about any politician. I checked all my accounts after that and found out I could reset my brokerage online if I knew the street where I grew up and the high school I attended. You can bet I made some fast changes to THAT arrangement.

Establishing business relationships is one of the things a business needs to do; but existing business relationships with one company don't prevent new business relationships with another company ... if they did, the first company with a given product/service would be the only company with that product/service. Money and Mint, to name but two, were able to get data from many (most?) of the same businesses that Quicken gets data from ... after Quicken had established relationships with those businesses.

You can pickup a script off the web today, for free, that (with possible, relatively minor, modifications) will allow you to pull (in a One Step Update manner) transaction data from your financial institutions in OFX format ... suitable for importing into Money (format-wise, it is suitable for importing into Quicken; but for the Quicken requirement that the data be from a verifiable Quicken "partner", I believe it would import successfully into Quicken). No need to establish any new business relationships, nor to know Money's proprietary file structure.

The reason I believe no such better product exists is because I have spent quite a few years trying competing products and have not yet found one but.... the search continues.

They also have to sell it to become viable. That means creating a better (at least in some areas) product and then getting Quicken users to switch as I suspect current Quicken users are a VERY large percent of the existing personal finance software market.

I don't doubt some genius has massaged Excel or some other spreadsheet program to create a better personal finance program (at least for him/her/it) but has no idea how to make it commercial and even if he/she/it did, has no resources for doing so.

XS11E wrote in news:Xns9D1D77093B256xs11eyahoocom@127.0.0.1:

As far as I know, it is geared for business, rather than personal finances.

CSM1

At $200 for a single user license I'd have to agree!