My December post about Intuit’s decision to “end of life” Quicken Online and several recent press interviews have stirred up quite a bit of interest from the Quicken community about what’s next. Since your feedback drives our product development, I thought I would say thanks to all of you who wrote in, and address a few pressing concerns.
• Quicken Online End-of-Life – The Quicken Online “end of life” does not have any impact on Quicken Desktop products. Quicken Online users will be migrated seamlessly over to Mint.com, preserving all of their account history and account connections. On Mint.com, they’ll be able to track their investments, avoid more bank fees, and find more savings opportunities with a completely free product – while maintaining aspects from Quicken Online (like manual transaction entry).
• Unified Platform – Instead of having three platforms – Quicken PC, Quicken Mac, and Mint.com – that are largely incompatible and have disparate feature sets, longer term (and a big caveat is this could be years away), I’d like to move personal finance to a unified platform.
Are you a long time Quicken PC user who wants to move to Mac? No problem, we have you covered (actually you can do that in late Feb 2010 when Quicken Essentials for Mac comes out – it imports Windows files no problem . Are you a desktop user who wants to move into the cloud or see your finances on the go from your iPhone, Android or other mobile device? No problem. Or, are you a desktop user who doesn’t want to move to the cloud (because you prefer your passwords on your machine)? No problem – stay on the desktop – and be prepared to get loads of new features inspired by Mint’s savings engine, or the Mac product’s graphical wizardry.
The idea would be that you could get the same features and functionality – call it the best of three worlds – no matter where you want to manage your finances, or which operating system you choose. Everyone wins.
• More Financial Institutions . We hear all the time that while it’s great Quicken or Mint.com synchronizes perfectly with 7 out of your 8 accounts with no data entry required, you need that 8th credit union from back home in West Iowa to work for you. This is no easy challenge. Quite shockingly, there are 15,000+ FDIC insured banks and credit unions in the U.S. Over the next year, however, we expect to support almost every one of them.
Let the weight of that ambitious plan sink in.
It’s a daunting prospect on our part, and we have a team of more than 60 people working on it full time. Can we pull it off? I think you deserve that we do.
• More Mobile – We’re exploring more mobile opportunities all the time. The next platform we’ll work with is the Android marketplace. And you can expect more platforms over time. If we can pull off the single unified/everything on PC, Mac, and online synch idea, then perhaps there’s even mobile for primarily desktop users.
Is that something you desktop users out there would like (yes, we’d make it secure, as our Mint iPhone app is – extra PIN for the app, encrypted data on the mobile, remote wipe-clean if you ever lose your phone)?
• Mac, Mac, Mac – Quicken Essentials for Mac is just weeks away from hitting the shelves. We’re going to give you a sneak peek of the new design and a few key features in the coming weeks. It’s a new era for the Mac product, with a new team at the helm, and gorgeous glossy design that will make you think it’s the missing iLife application. We can’t wait to show you.
Aaron Patzer
VP and GM of Intuit’s Personal Finance Group
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