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From: John Pollard on 12 Feb 2010 20:28
Notan wrote:
> On 2/12/2010 9:26 AM, John Pollard wrote:
>> Notan wrote:
>>>
>>> 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.
>>
>> 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.

> Money has been discontinued.

While there will be no new Money product, the existing product will
continue to work. And it will continue to be able to import OFX files.

> Mint is a read-only service.

I fail to see how that matters to your original point. Mint is (or was) a
Quicken competitor ... and it became a competitor while Quicken had its
"established business relationships" ... as did Money.


> I don't see either of these as substitute for Quicken.

Neither do I; I think you missed my point. Which is that established
business relationships and proprietary file formats are not what prevent
competitors from entering the market ... or from being able to provide the
basics that those two "advantages" presume to provide. Those are not the
significant factors in being able to provide meaningful, successful,
competition.

> I also don't see anyone else with the relationship Intuit
> has established with FIs. (Most of my FIs have Help Desks,
> with one of the options being "if you're having trouble
> with Quicken or MS Money...")

I see no evidence that no one else can establish such relationships. Your
own commet confirms what I said, since you note that Money, a latecomer,
was also able to establish such a relationship with the fi's. But a ton
of Quicken users have reported getting little or no help from their
financial institutions ... surprise. Money users have also reported such
problems.

I suspect you haven't paid close attention to what many Quicken/Money
complainants have been saying. It's no accident that both Intuit and
Microsoft have made very similar comments about the problems they are (or
were) facing, trying to satisfy current, and potential future, customers.

> I'd love to see a Quicken substitute, without Intuit-like arrogance.

Pretending that such "arrogance" exists, insures that those who believe
it, will never understand what's really happening. It's the "blame
someone else" syndrome; instead of coming to grips with having reasonable
expectations.

Just like the Money users were flabbergasted that Microsoft decided it was
not economically feasible to satisfy their irrational desires (and also
made the same mistaken comment, that MS was being arrogant) ... Intuit
will likely come to the same conclusion (if they have not done so
already). Not because they're arrogant ... because they are in business
to make a profit. Profits which: pay the salaries of their employees
(most people understand the importance of having jobs ... too few
understand what it takes to create and keep those jobs), support the price
of the company stock for many folks' retirement nest eggs (most of whom do
not work for the company or even use its products), and which help to
insure that there will be an ongoing product for those customers who like
the product (and who could care less about the personality of the
individuals in the company that makes the product).

Neither Intuit, nor Microsoft, is exhibiting arrogance; they are
exhibiting an understanding of the marketplace ... since they are not in
business to lose money just to prove to the uninformed that they "care".

--

John Pollard
news://<YOUR-NNTP-NEWSERVER-HERE>/alt.comp.software.financial.quicken
Your source of user-to-user Quicken help



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