Quicken being divested

Definition of a mature product with no growth...

I hope that Intuit finds a buyer who will keep Quicken going. I have my doubts.

A question. Suppose that I was obliged to start using QuickBooks as a replacement to Quicken. What features would I lose? Portfolio management?

Discussion of Quicken alternatives here:

That's the problem - the desktop software market is dead - hence Intuit's decision to divest. Now days it's all web based with smartphone/tablet access. Note that Intuit is keeping Mint.

From their perspective it lets them generate recurring revenue from constantly scanning your transactions and financial situation, unlike desktop software which is once a year at best.

Unless it's been improved drastically since I last tried it a few years ago, Mint just isn't worth the effort. For me, it was mostly an exercise in frustration, and far inferior to Quicken, even when it wasn't nagging me that it couldn't access one of my accounts. The potential end results just weren't worth the hassle.

They should sell it to Microsoft.

See

But if it spins off cash with little cost/ effort in updating it, it's still worth keeping alive

That's the problem - it isn't spinning off cash. Consumer desktop software is a one time purchase. A mature product like Quicken doesn't compel consumers to buy new versions on a recurring basis. Intuit tried to address that by forcing upgrades every three years to keep OSU alive with limited success. They also tried to generate revenue by charging banks a lot of money to enable OSU, but we're seeing reports that some banks are dropping that now.

Combine that with a flat at best and probably declining market for PCs and they couldn't find enough new buyers to support the business.

On the cost side, Intuit is already running a pretty lean operation. The Quicken UI hasn't seen any investment in years and they shifted support to a peer to peer model years ago.

Is there enough revenue to support keeping a small independent team working on tax law changes and any tweaks required by changes to Windows? Maybe. I don't think we're going to see any huge updates to the software with a spinoff.

Another possibility is that someone with a hot new financial product sees the Quicken customer base as a shortcut to launching their new web based product and buys the company for access to the names. Have no idea what that could be. My guess is that Intuit would see that as a threat to Mint and prevent it as a condition of sale.

Bottom line: OSU may go away, but the existing core product will be functional as is for the forseeable future. Just nothing new to look forward to.

Here is another article about Quicken's dance with death:

According to this article, For the last 12 months, Quicken contributed just $51 million to the company's total revenue of nearly $4.2 billion.

That is the heart of the matter, right there.

The article also references a FAQ from Intuit:

It is mostly corporate bullshit. Some interesting bits:

• Quicken 2016 is going to happen.

• Intuit will continue to "invest in the Mac offering." WTF?

Unfortunately, although Intuit there says Quicken will continue as before when they find a buyer, the buyer's view of what it should do could be very different.

As far as I'm concerned, the current version is fine, and it's been a long time since a new year's version of Quicken has had any really significant improvements. If the last Intuit version would continue to work as it does, and OSU and billpay continued to work, I'd be happy to stay with it forever.

I'm running 2014 Deluxe. I usually upgrade only ever other year, and skipped 2015. I was planning on buying 2016 this fall, but perhaps I should wait and see what happens.

I believe what is going on is the PC is dying and Intuit sees no future gro wth in Quicken. Banks and Investment companies are offering more and more f eatures, not all that Quicken offers, but they are getting closer every day . One thing they don't offer is a long history. I plan to get used to doin g more of my finances on a smart phone. It's the way of the future. The thr ee year sunset business model is just not profitable so Intuit is getting o ut. Everything will soon be on the cloud with a yearly license fee.

From: "Jeffrey"

Thanx for the information.

My data goes back to 1992, so needless to say I'm anxious about what wil l happen. My total financial history is in Quicken: mortgages, loans, credi t cards, checking and saving accounts and investment portfolios. It would r eally suck if all my record keeping were to be nullified due to the extinct ion of the QDF file format. Ideally some other product will come along that allows the data to migrate intact. Being able to download from financial i nstitutions is paramount. Once that goes, we're left twisting in the wind. Sorry for the pessimism. Scott W's suggestion that they sell to Microsoft might be the best scen ario.

My data goes back to 1992, so needless to say I'm anxious about what will happen. My total financial history is in Quicken: mortgages, loans, credit cards, checking and saving accounts and investment portfolios. It would really suck if all my record keeping were to be nullified due to the extinction of the QDF file format. Ideally some other product will come along that allows the data to migrate intact. Being able to download from financial institutions is paramount. Once that goes, we're left twisting in the wind. Sorry for the pessimism. Scott W's suggestion that they sell to Microsoft might be the best scenario.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, MY data goes back to 1993 and I would NEVER entrust ANY financial institution OR software to download data into any device I own or use. Being able to download TRANSACTIONS from financial institutions is TOTALLY irrelevant---just for the lazy and the over trusting. No problem with downloading JUST stock prices, though.

Mine only goes back to 1993. I've actually been using Quicken since

1990 or 1991, but I started over again in 1993.

Me too.

Same here.

As long as you still have an older version of Quicken, you can run it forever. Nothing will happen to your data.

I agree that being able to download is important, but you apparently thing it's more important than I do. Even if you no long can download with it, you can continue to use Quicken, and update your financial records manually. Sure, it's less convenient, but it would still be easier than what it used to be like in the old days when we did it all with pencil and paper.

Who knows? Microsoft might do things with it that we wouldn't like.

But it's probably highly unlikely that Microsoft would buy it, since they already dumped Money.

My data goes back to the 1990s and your comment about people being overtrus ting and lazy for wanting automatic transaction entry fits your usual deris ion of anything that the majority of Q users use and depend on. Why sho uld anyone spend untold amount of time entering each little dividend/intere st/sales/buys transaction from multiple accounts into Quicken manually? Ye s, occasionaly there are oddball stock split and spinoffs that Quicken does n't handle well, but for 95% of the rest, I can accomplish it in 5 minutes. And updating my charge accounts manually would be a nightmare. I would int roduce more errors putting them in quicken manually, and properly categoriz ing them, than the Quicken could ever introduce. Data entry is a time was ter, and an archaic approach to financial management. With Q I know exact ly how much of my income has come from each category of my investing/spendi ng and can compare it to previous time periods at any point. You think I want to type all that into a spreadsheet every month? Turn a one step proc ess into multiple error prone steps? What possible advantage is there to moving backwards in user capability?

As for the not trust issue: What do you think is going to happen to your de vices if you accept transaction input from financial institutions? You pa ranoia in the face of years of us doing exactly what you deride is incompre hensible.

t into a spreadsheet every month? Turn a one step process into multiple error prone steps? What possible advantage is there to moving backwards in user capability?

Very well said and I'm with you. Thanks for your post.

That comment was meant as a joke. I came from many years with MS Money to Quicken. I was very upset I was forced to switch. If both products sunset, I will go back to Money, a much better product. In fact I still use Money for my stock transactions.

Who knows? Microsoft might do things with it that we wouldn't like.

But it's probably highly unlikely that Microsoft would buy it, since they already dumped Money.

Scott, I wasn't referring to anything you posted. I've never used Money, so anything you can add to a discussion about it might be used to duplicate what Quicken can do would be appreciated.