Slashdot Mirror
Intuit Drops DRM from Future Products
MisterKoffee writes "ExtremeTech has a story about Intuit dropping Product Activation and Digital Rights Management for most of its future products, including TurboTax, in response to a customer backlash."
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If your customers threaten you enough, you'll eventually lose bad schemes like DRM.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
Their DRM was so potentially dangerous it was silly. Good to see that they are pulling back from their stance. I don't see microsoft taking the hint, though.
...you print FOUR times total!
I usually need at least that many times because of spotting errors and fixing them up!
Good job Intuit! If this garbage is gone then I WILL purchase your product again.
TurboTax 2003: The Quickening, starring Sean Connery as the dead-but-not-really DRM engineer who must again protect Connor from having his head (Tax-)Cut off./
"Adding digital-rights-management software to the company's tax preparation neither paid off financially in attracting new customers, nor in consumer satisfaction, Intuit spokesman Scott Gulbransen said."
Just how was adding DRM supposed to attract customers and increase customer satisfaction? This sounds distinctly like a marketing/public relations spin attempt.
--Ben
If you include DRM -- you will sink like a lead balloon. The customers have spoken. Now, we just need to turn the heat up on Microsoft. Why wasn't their a backlash like this for Microsoft? People need to tell companies that they won't stand for this type of behavior. Let's hope that Microsoft is taking notes. Palladium is going to have the same problems as Intuit did.
I'm shocked that the so called backlash has caused Intuit to do this. It flies in the face of yesterday's earnings news. According to the news Intuit sales on its tax preparation software increased dramatically over the same period last year. My assumtion being that the copy protection was indeed effective and caused many more people than usual to fork out their $14~$35.
This Slashdot story comes as a real shock after yesterdays market news. I'd really like to know some more accurate details on the decision.
Am I the only person who feels that this entire argument should be moot? The IRS is perfectly capable of allowing consumers to file online tax returns. Several states, including DC (my home is in the district) allow online tax forms to be filled out. All are quite advanced, allowing deductions and the proper calculations to take mere seconds. Most are relatively error-free.
The IRS though, caving to groups like Intuit and full-service prepares like H&R Block, has taken the novel approach of allowing people to submit taxes online, but only if approved through a private company. Yes, there are a few folks who can use telefile, but for anyone making any decent wages, there's no free equivalent to telefile for federal forms. I'm don't itemize my deductions, yet even taking the standard deduction makes it "impossible" to use telefile.
This is one area that the government could step in and provide a useful service for free, just as the states have done so. There's no reason for them not to, except for frantic lobbying by certain interests.
There constant marketing to me and cross-marketing over the years already let me know Intuit viewed me as a profit center not a valued customer.
This DRM silliness was the straw that broke my back. I tried H&R blocks software and found no real difference. Now H&R has me as a customer. And, I strongly frightened my family and friends awy from TurboTax.
The big problem is that Intuit, H&R et al aren't bound by the same sacrosanct statutes as the IRS. So, there is no legel provision stopping them from selling/giving away your person informaiton and your income statements.
With them treating me as a profit center (as opposed to a customer) I have lost faith that they're not (at least capable of) storing and selling my info either when I use electronic filing or when the software silently phones home.
I always accepted that such behaviour was technically possible, but not something they would do, until the DRM coupled with excessive cross-marketing.
My relationship with them was based on trust and now they've lost that.
Something tells me that Intuit isn't going to see continued growth and profits next year, though.
I read them the riot act about this via email. I finally recieved this reply today ..
Dear Valued Customer:
In response to your comments on the implementation of product activation technology in tax year 2002 TurboTax® software, I wanted to let you know that Intuit will discontinue product activation in next year's TurboTax desktop products purchased at retail or direct from Intuit.
We are absolutely committed to listening and learning from our customers. We clearly need to better understand all of our customers' tax preparation needs and how they use TurboTax.
While we remain committed to protecting our intellectual property, going forward, we will only introduce digital rights management technologies that maximize customer experience and preserve customer satisfaction.
Again, thanks for your feedback.
Regards,
Tom Allanson, Sr. Vice President
TurboTax
Well - they saved me as a paying and happy customer!
---- "Logoff! That cookie shit makes me nervous!" - A. Soprano
While the QNX stuff is generally of excellent quality the FlexLM thing is a persistent source of problems. Installation and upgrade have never gone smoothly, with obscure services not starting or being misconfigured by the installer, client authentication going wrong more times than it should (i.e. ever), and occasional file-locking problems that require a reboot. At least in my case, licence management seems to generate as much traffic with the QNX support folks as does their actual product (host and target) in its entirety.
Worryingly, the licence is bound specifically to one licence server. I _imagine_ that if the machine (a laptop) were destroyed, lost, or updated, then there would be some means whereby I could persuade them to issue another licence, but it's bound to be a sticky point.
I wouldn't care if everything worked properly and transparently, but it doesn't. My vendor is essentially treating me like a thief and simultaneously making himself look like a bozo (which he isn't - the rest of the QNX stuff is great).
On the last occasion it took several days to resolve the licence manager issues - had this been at a more critical time then this would have been a dealbreaker. It leaves me with a rather bitter taste in my mouth, and I'd think twice before recommending QNX to another client, purely for this reason.
So is their bizantine DRM saving them money, or costing them? I think Intuit can answer that for them.
## W.Finlay McWalter ## http://www.mcwalter.org ##
Haven't we already talked about the difference in power between a company with a monopoly on the market and one that is in a competitive market?
I'm a die-hard GNU/Linux and Free Software advocate (even to the point of occasionally prefixing "linux" with "GNU"), but seriously, what alternative to Microsoft exists in the marketplace?
The home user gets a copy of Windows on the PC s/he buys through virtually every common outlet. (Wal-Mart on line offers Linux based PCs, but not in their stores yet). The games they want to run are Windows-only.
In business, it is hard to find OEMs pushing Linux for desktop machines. Sure, you could go to one of the Linux-friendly VARs, but most of them aren't geared up to provide sales and support to large corporations.
I'm not saying this situation is forever. Linux is gaining ground in all markets. But, for the present, Microsoft still has their effective monopoly power. They're strongarming the motherboard OEMs into implementing Palladium. They'll have it in a future version of Windows. And what choice will consumers have? There won't be a choice. And that, my friends, is what monopolies and cartels do.
A plan for consumer friendly computing:
1. Educate. Talk to your friends about DRM and what it means.
2. Agitate. Join the EFF. Write your congressional delegation. Boycott companies (like Intuit) that use DRM.
3. Have integrity. Don't violate copyright. Don't copy software illegally. Don't copy music illegally. Don't copy anything illegally. This is the least popular thing I have to say, but it is IMPORTANT. Every copy is bullet in the other side's arsenal. Evey copy is an argument for them to push legislation that takes away our freedoms. We must not be hypocrites if we want to have the moral ground to expose their hypocrisy.
4. Exercise the rights you have. Rip every single one of your CDs to mp3 or ogg files. Copy them onto every kind of media you have. Make use of your fair use rights. Return hardware that doesn't let you do this. Return (or better, don't buy) copy protected media. Even if that Macrovision protected DVD is your favorite movie (here you are hampered by the fact that products are not labeled adequately -- that's where writing congress comes in -- lobby for consumer protection laws. Our opoonents have lobbyists -- be one yourself for our side. Believe me, letters make a difference).
5. Talk. (Actually a variation on item 1, but it is really important, so I'll repeat it). Spread these ideas. Put up a web site. Join in onine discussions here and elsewhere. Get the "idea" of digital freedom into the popular conciousness at every opportunity. True, this isn't slavery or Jim Crow, but this is a civil liberties issue, and it is time we started drawing people's attention to it.
shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
They lost me as a customer. Taxcut did just as well for me and I have no reason to go back to TT from Intuit.
BC