They answer the phone and the email a lot. Telling users to reinstall or
start a new file may not sound like support in your book or mine, but just
getting the case closed any way possible costs money. And given the revenue
per copy, even one case puts them upside down on that sale.

I think you are on the right track in your calculations. None of us know the
exact numbers but it's pretty easy to conclude that the product probably
doesn't have a stellar business case for more investment of the
shareholder's money. I do know quite a lot of something about what it costs
to develop software. $10M doesn't buy much software development these days.

I've been planning on writing a Money+ page for the umpmfaq. Your comment
re. my page on M04 gives me pause. It's really hard to say M+ is some kind
of important update to M07, OTOH, I have an appreciation for what the
business case dynamics at work here are and hate to run anybody off from the
annual tithing. (I'd never have had any such scruples about M05 or a future
similar version. You just have to say s*** when you have a mouthful of it.)
It's kinda like bad mouthing the United Way. Sure, they have issues. But
what's the collective choice? Putting 'em under to prove the point? It's
also kind like passing on rumors about, say, an airline going under. Enough
people do it and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We've all got our Money wish lists. Mine's posted at
http://umpmfaq.info/WishList.htm. Some of my items have been there for more
than a decade, still unrequited. But given the recent history I hate to be
greedy and will gladly settle for them not just declaring a draw and walking
away. Note the name change and the new terms in the online services policy
about potential fee-based offerings just to extend online services,
presumably completely decoupled from any future version upgrades. I don't
know what any of it means exactly nor what their intentions are, but I don't
hear eagerness about future development of the product.

"Mark Fields" <mark_no_spam_f[at]siscom.net> wrote in message
news:46f46e9f$0$19000$4c368faf[at]roadrunner.com...
- quote -

comment below
"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:O%23VIKq$%23HHA.3900[at]TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
- quote -

Does Microsoft really "support" Money? I'm not being a smart aleck, because
I have never called them to ask a question but I am curious what the cost
would be. If they sell 1,000,000 copies at $20 the revenue is only $20M and
if there is such a thing as a Microsoft Money "Division" then it seems like
they could afford about 100 employees, nore or less, to do everything.

They may not even be organized like this but I'm curious. I would not
expect the software to be free nor would I even want to have an illegal copy
because $20 to $50 is pretty reasonable for what it does to keep me
organized.

My complaints about the product are pretty minimal now that is runs faster
after nuke the bills.

Here's my thoughts on my recent experience (i.e. last 5-6 years) is with
Mocrosoft Money.

1) Each year I buy software to do taxes. I used to like TurboTax and
probably first used it in 1995 or so.
2) Tried Taxcut (maybe in 1996) since it was bundled with a newer copy of
Money. Hated Taxcut. Liked my upgrade of Money.
3) Bought Taxcut again because it was $5 less than TurboTax and figured that
it would be better than the previous year. Was bundled with Money and the
upgrade was pretty good.
4) Lather Rinse and repeat (LOL).
5) Somewhere around 1999 or 2000 skipped the Money upgrade and bought only
the Taxcut software. Reason for skipping: Was tired of retail bundling of
software and tricky rebate programs which ripped me off because proper
documents were not sent in.
6) Hardware upgrades a few times sprinkled in.
7) Bought tax software and Money 2002. Liked the change from Money 1999.
8) Repeated this for Money 2003. Didn't see much change but noticed Money
was slower and slower although I had upgraded hardware (PC) every 3-4 years
since inital purchase of Money in 1994 (was it version 3.1 or ???)
9) Bought 2004 and did not open it because reading newspgroup and
http://umpmfaq.info/ indicated there was little to gain. Gave away Money
2004 software and kept using Money 2003.
10) Bought TaxCut again in Jan 2007 and figured I would buy Money 2007.
Left in box, unopened, until I read remarks on http://umpmfaq.info/ a couple
months ago about "Nuke the Bills". Got excited that this could be the
answer to the performance issues (after all, how many times do I have to buy
new hardware becasue the software keeps getting slower!) and installed Money
2007 but kept Money 2003 on the computer (with appropriate backups).
11) After spending half a day doing the Nuke the bills exercise, then
noticing the type of performance I expect, I never looked back and kept
using only Money 2007.

My thoughts are:

1) I would pay $20 to $50 each year if I could be guaranteed that
performance will always be better each year (here I mean speed).
2) I wish they would not eliminate some features, only add features and
possible let the user pick what can be added (like an install feature) so
the software could be operated "stripped down" and leaner to keep
performance high. For example I don't want any downloading except for stock
and mutual fund prices. I will manually post all else.
3) Why not have a way where one could SAFELY get the stock prices (for
graphing, etc.) from an on line source so our file does not need to store a
lot of nonsense transactions.
4) Why not keep improving the software by adding a tutorial to help new
users learn how to use software faster.
5) Money should come up with a good way to handle savings bonds. I mean the
government can write "Savings Bond Wizard" why can't Money do something
similar? Let it update from uncle sam's files.
6) Add in some features like let us put in odometer readings with fuel
purchases and have money advise on how i'm doing with gas mileage on a car
by car basis. Also track maintenance costs.
7) Let me build hot links into my file, so if I scan or download a PDF to my
hard drive (of a statement for example) I can link to that within Money.
8) Give me a place to store auto insurance information so I can solicit
quotes easily from insurance providers.
9) How about helping me track some utilities (like kwH usage, telephone
minutes, etc.) and help me save money by finding lower cost providers based
on my real usage?

There's probably a few other features that would improve the product but I
want Microsoft to make a product that will help with even more ways to save
money or make my money work even harder for me.

Mark

PS - sorry it was so long.

Specific comments below.

"Mark Fields" <mark_no_spam_f[at]siscom.net> wrote in message
news:46f32147$0$11002$4c368faf[at]roadrunner.com...
- quote -

I don't have the checkbook register but even if I did, it'd only capture 5%
or less of the financial activity I capture in Money.

- quote -

Don't forget support. I'm betting it's their biggest cost. Also don't forget
the advertising and "vig" revenue. ("Get great Credit Card rates..." etc.)
Also don't forget the OEM copies of "Essentials" they still "sell". It sure
appears that advertising and marketing have gone about to $0. It's pretty
apparent that development has also gone almost to $0. All in all, every way
I slice it, it can't be much of a money maker for Microsoft's shareholders.
I did read in an Intuit 10k once that Quicken is their least profitable
product by a long shot. And they have 70% of the market by the accounts I've
read.

"Zach" <meoge[at]hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2718BD3D-D98E-4455-99B5-54F7A2D76951[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Yikes! I guess I would have to continue with my paper checkbook register.
Seriously, I have been keeping a paper checkbook register alongside of Money
since begining to use Money in 1994. I don't remember the version.

I think it was advanced far enough for my purposes somewhere about 1999.
The Nuke the bills fix, while annoying in the time it took to re-enter all
the bills and deposit and tweak the budget (I am still finding occassional
budget tweaks and additional bills to add) was a good fix. About on par
with what I would expect from Microsoft on this product.

It would be interesting to know what is the installed base for Microsoft
Money and how many new vs. upgrade units are sold each year. The price is
fairly reasonable but it makes you wonder what is their operating budget and
what is the nember of persons working on the software development,
advertising and marketing, etc? Does this product just rake in a lot of
dollars for Bill without much effort or do they really look into
improvements each year? It seems like the add-ons and bundled "junk" (like
free credit reports, etc.) is also designed to make more income for the
product.

I'm not really complaining since I do upgrade every other year or so
(although I refused to upgrade to 04, 05 and 06 because it seemed worthless)
but it seems like if some software developer out there were willing to make
a new program with truly improved features, or a competing one which would
use the same file structure they could break into this market. As an
example it would be like the OpenOffice software compared to MS Office. I
suppose the market is not as great as for EXCEL or WORD but there still muct
be a pretty big market.

Mark

"Zach" <meoge[at]hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2718BD3D-D98E-4455-99B5-54F7A2D76951[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Yep, 10 years here as well.

Bruce.

Amen. To what both of you wrote.

"Zach" <meoge[at]hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2718BD3D-D98E-4455-99B5-54F7A2D76951[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

I've given up on Microsoft putting any real development money into this
program. It obvously doesn't generate enough money to be worth overhauling.
It would be nice if they would just fix some of the bugs and stop with the
new features for a couple of years, but that'll never happen either. I try
not to think about what will happen when they stop making it all together
since it holds all my financial records for the past 10 years.


"Bruce." <noone[at]nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:egP6cnl%23HHA.4184[at]TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
- quote -

"Zach" <meoge[at]hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:2098CD49-1643-4072-8539-15FD5649B1FC[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

I guess the real question is why MS can't do that work programmatically so
you wouldn't have to spend 4 hours at it. They must know what's wrong or
they wouldn't have created the bill nuker. Why can't they do in seconds
what took you 4 hours to do?

Bruce.

I just wanted to write and say that although "nuke the bills" is a very time
consuming thing, it was worth all of the 4 hours I spent recreating my bills
and cleaning up my budget. To say that it sped up the program doesn't do it
justice. I've been using money since 98 and it had gotten to the point
where I had to log into money and then walk away from the computer for 4 or
5 minutes before I could enter a bill or look at my cashflow. After nuking
the bills, it now takes less than 5 seconds for me to be able to do
anything. I feel like it's 1999!!!
If you're having slow down problems it's worth a try, just folow the
instructions on the Money FAQ and remote desktop into another computer with
money installed first, it makes recreation of the bills much simpler. If it
doesn't work for you, just revert back to the copy you made before you
began.

Zach