The theory sounds valid....at what price will the "home" market stop paying
for software upgrades, or for that matter, new software. It is has been the
very nature of retailing (not just software) for years and years. However,
since MS Money is an old product, how much do the upgrades actually cost
Microsoft. For example, how many man hours is the development team
spending on the portion of the program that allows you to track your
investments in real time? Past version upgrades often had significant
changes, not so any longer.


I can fully understand why the retail store version might be a thing of the
past....it must be produced (CDs are cheap, but not free), transportedand
warehoused (as compared to server time while you download), inventoried,
accounted for, etc., etc., all of which makes it hard to be profitable for
all concerned. On the other hand, $39.95 or $49.95 for a Deluxe upgrade
that essentially has no changes does seem to "stretch" that price theory.

Personally I have used Money since it first came out, and am currently using
the 2006 version. Would I pay "something" for a minor tweak, including the
ability to track my investment again? Yes....just not $40.



"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:A2D2DDBA-6574-4106-972C-CA4CA8643AFB[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

Works came after Money. Money has always had a separate identity.

Money also is Vista compatible.

<muhhammed[at]gmail.com> wrote in message
news:8fb7f7a1-e2b2-47e8-9ebd-780001b76939[at]n10g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
- quote -

Why don't they just bundle Quicken updates with the tax software and just put it on the same disk. It would say money and give their product a competitive edge. I don't even use MacIntax or whatever they call it these days. I switched to a cheaper version.

"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in message news:eY6ihagWJHA.4284[at]TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
Quicken hasn't yet. (Intuit doesn't make money on the product either.)

Note also that essentially nobody has found a way to make money selling
"home software" besides maybe tax software where the government enforces
annual upgrades. The price elasticity of demand is too high. Translated:
people just won't pay for it.

"SteveC" <sconklan.nospam.yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:F75928CD-83B7-4E84-A8AD-29ADC58D48E5[at]microsoft.com...
It is not a good sign that MS is moving away from home products. They have
canceled WindowsLiveOneCare, which was getting better all the time. I
would bet, however, if they do drop Money, that Quicken will put out a
product that will allow us to "upgrade" to them.

Remember a few years back when MS tried to buy Quicken? The government,
pushed by the banks no doubt, put a stop to it. But after all, that might
have been the best idea.


<muhhammed[at]gmail.com> wrote in message
news:8fb7f7a1-e2b2-47e8-9ebd-780001b76939[at]n10g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
- quote -

Having followed money software for last 10 years, I believe money
started as part of "Microsoft Works" Package, and will end up being
part of some packaged software bundle, if not web version.

I personally find Money "simpler" to use than Quicken. This still does
not absolve Microsoft from not being able to fix simple bugs in over
10 years period.

I hope Microsoft Money lives, but given competition from Quicken, and
Quicken already has web version, Vista compatible version puts
Microsoft last on list in its own playground.

Agreed, selling individual applications software to home users is just a
dicey proposition. As you point out you have to sell each individual users on
each upgrade along the way and you use low price as the marketing mechanism
and hope that the add on sale of ancillary services recoups the investment.
This means per customer aquisition costs are huge unless it's a mass mass
market product like games where the customer aquisition costs are amortized
over millions of units.

I'd be fine if they continue on with online only sales and every couple of
years release a slightly upgraded version. I'd be willing to pay subscription
service cost for data feeds provided they were reasonable.

Greg

"Dick Watson" wrote:

- quote -

Yup.

The problem selling to this "home software" market seems to be that the
price elasticity of demand is so steep. If you raise the price much above
some arbitrary number (Is it $19.99 $49.95? I don't know. But I bet Microsoft
knows…) people just won't buy it in numbers sufficient to make a business
case for the kinds of investment it takes to develop decent software with
reasonably high functionality. (But lots of them will try to find ways to
steal it.) If you invest money adding function to make a new version, you
have to go out and work like mad to convince all of those users you convinced
once that they really need to spend more money to get new features when in
many cases they are just barely scratching the surface of the features they
already paid for.

That's why they try to sell it cheap and then leverage having the software
out there in the customer's face to get some way to make a dime. (Money:
"Find great rates on Home Equity Loans" and so on. You see it in Photoshop
Elements and Adobe Reader and on and on. ANYTHING they can think of to try
and pry another dime or two out of the person looking at their window.) Just
selling software to a customer once is no way to "monetize the relationship".

"gcraig" wrote:

- quote -

You and me both. But I don't think we're enough to carry the entire
development team.

"Paul Pedersen" wrote:

- quote -

I find that quite surprising. Maybe I'm the only one, but I think it's well
worth the money, and I'd happily pay even more if they worked out some of
the remaining kinks. I can't imagine having to go back to checkbook
registers.


"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:eY6ihagWJHA.4284[at]TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
- quote -

I wonder if they should consider a segmented approach. Make a basic fully
web-based version for modest needs aka the online tax programs. Then have a
full featured version at a much higher price point for advanced users (??
$250 or similar to Office programs pricing). I know I would pay substantially
more for the functionality I need, not necessarily annually though would
consider participating in a subscription model.

This hybrid model of thinking that a cheap program will be a conduit for
selling other stuff doesn't seem to work to me. I see it in other programs -
eg Family Tree Maker -and they end up destroying functional applications in
favor of trying to sell services through them and the focus is lost on
software functionality.

Quicken hasn't yet. (Intuit doesn't make money on the product either.)

Note also that essentially nobody has found a way to make money selling
"home software" besides maybe tax software where the government enforces
annual upgrades. The price elasticity of demand is too high. Translated:
people just won't pay for it.

"SteveC" <sconklan.nospam.yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:F75928CD-83B7-4E84-A8AD-29ADC58D48E5[at]microsoft.com...
It is not a good sign that MS is moving away from home products. They have
canceled WindowsLiveOneCare, which was getting better all the time. I
would bet, however, if they do drop Money, that Quicken will put out a
product that will allow us to "upgrade" to them.

It is not a good sign that MS is moving away from home products. They have canceled WindowsLiveOneCare, which was getting better all the time. I would bet, however, if they do drop Money, that Quicken will put out a product that will allow us to "upgrade" to them.


"gcraig" <gcraig[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:22CA82F0-DEDD-4313-825A-22E5CE1A0D7B[at]microsoft.com...
It is covered in other threads here. They are just discontinuing the retail
boxed version and moving away from annual updates at this point NOT
eliminating the product. I'm expressing my concerns now in the hopes that as
MSFT looks at it's future they DO NOT eliminate the product. It apparently
will continue to be for sale online. See the Wikipedia entry on Money or
search Google for 'Microsoft Money discontinued'

Greg

"Paul Pedersen" wrote:

- quote -

It is covered in other threads here. They are just discontinuing the retail
boxed version and moving away from annual updates at this point NOT
eliminating the product. I'm expressing my concerns now in the hopes that as
MSFT looks at it's future they DO NOT eliminate the product. It apparently
will continue to be for sale online. See the Wikipedia entry on Money or
search Google for 'Microsoft Money discontinued'

Greg

"Paul Pedersen" wrote:

- quote -

Is this for real? Where did you read that?


"gcraig" <gcraig[at]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:A04C0026-61F7-4EE7-8D3F-18F71F686B11[at]microsoft.com...
- quote -

I've just read up on Microsoft discontinuing Money in its retail version and
somewhat hazy plans for the future of the product. I just need to express a
few thoughts on the subject in case any Microsoft employees or product
managers read this.

- I have used Microsoft Money since it came out.
- I am a shareholder since day of issue.
- I have invested literally thousands of hours in maintaining my data in
Money, dealing with its problems, and recovering from its sometimes
pernicious and random errors as well as the numbnuts who typically provide
support for it and whose favorite answer is "restore from a backup."
- I manage my finances/portfolio and that of my elderly mom and a mentally
disabled sibling with Money
- I think it is a good product that could be great given the right resources
and marketing but it has always seemed an orphan product inside the Microsoft
monster
- I would also note that it consistently gets high marks in the financial
press

PLEASE DO NOT COMPLETELY DISCONTINUE THIS PRODUCT IN THE FUTURE. PLEASE
INVEST THE RIGHT RESOURCES AND MANAGEMENT IN MAKING THIS A COMPETITIVE
PRODUCT OR SELL IT TO A COMPANY THAT WILL.

Charge more for it if you have to, I'd pay, I'm screwed if you folks kill
this product.