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Show Me The Money - Microsoft Money Vs. Quicken

Posted by simoniker on from the do-not-pass-go dept.

prostoalex writes "The weblog entry 'Show me the money' is an interesting tale of Microsoft Money from a developer who now manages software development in the Tablet PC group at Microsoft. Having worked before with Money, which was assigned a task of beating Quicken, Philip describes the disasters that happen when marketing and advertising people rule the software development: 'Money's success or failure was judged using the same metrics as MSN's websites. Metrics like minutes viewed per month. Like ad revenue. Like click-through. Stickiness. I am not making this up.'"

5 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. Money software by WesG · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Most people don't use either because their bank/credit card doesn't support them.

    The biggest thing I have found useful is online bill pay.

    Yay

  2. Where's Money's roll today? by Albanach · · Score: 5, Insightful
    As banks produce better and better online banking systems, is there still a place for Money / Quicken?

    Sure there are folks who have disperate accounts and complex fincial arrangements where that might make sense, and they're the 1% actually using these products. For everyone else, a decade ago there was a demand because people wanted to keep track of their finances between bank statements. Today you just click online and your bank shows you exactly where your finances are.

    As banks try to differentiate themselves in the online marketplace, you can bet they'll expand their offerings until they compete with the offerings from Intuit and Microsoft. Perhaps those firms should stop trying to sell millions of copies to customers and instead try and sell server based software to the banks to produce a customer interface, or are they already doing thatas well?

    1. Re:Where's Money's roll today? by NickisGod.com · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Today you just click online and your bank shows you exactly where your finances are.

      This is why people end up paying bank fees and bouncing checks so often. Automatic payments, delay in deposits, etc. Balancing your books is just as important today as it was fifteen/fifty years ago. Any online banking system I've used tells you how much the bank has (more a less an instant statement). All so often, however, we set up automatic payments, we have direct deposit, financial movements a statement won't reflect because they haven't happened yet, and you need plan for these. I have no doubt online banking will reach this sophistication, but there will always be a place for the bank's balance and your books balance.

      By the way, I have Bank of America, and I love their report of pending debits/credits, it's helped me plan for unexpected (fraudulent, like cancelled health insurance and an ISP who decided to continue charging me) debits from my account by transferring money from my savings, avoiding fees/etc. that make things messy.

      Is there an online system that works like a register (where you can enter a check that may not post for three days), or do they all simply reflect balances and posted transactions still?

  3. Re:I dont need some fancy finance program... by nuggz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I used to do that.
    I've found Gnucash to be vastly superior.
    It easily tracks my expenses and account balances.
    To do that in a spreadsheet would be more complicated.

  4. Re:Beware of geeks bearing gifts by sane? · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Those 'propeller-beanie techies', as you put it, are often more grounded in reality than the marketing and advertising liars that incompetent management often attempt to 'put in charge'.

    Market weenies are too much of 'today' - they are forever trying to catch up with where others have been, reacting rather than acting. They should NEVER be anything other than support to something with a development time greater than six months in the IT world. The drive for something to be delivered in a year's time should always be someone who can imagine that far out.

    And on a related point, do you notice how you feel quite happy using abusive terms for those with technical skill? Do you ever call marketing and advertising 'liars' (as I did above)? If not, why not? It's an apt description - but maybe they would complain to much, it wouldn't be socially acceptable.

    Until you start having respect for those that can do, you will never learn to work successfully TOGETHER, and you'll continue to think conflict is the best collaboration.