"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:eqrIKcU0DHA.2544[at]TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
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I typically buy direct, so they get all my money.

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The target market for PowerPoint, Word and Excel is also a "whole lot
broader than 'computer geek.'" Furthermore, Money probably could generate
more upgrade revenue per customer than Word or Excel. I bet a higher
percentage of users upgrade Money each year than upgrade Word each year.

Word is only $89 or so. You can't tell me that they can't build a product
with Excel's sophistication for the personal finance market and sell it at
the price level of Word or Excel. I just don't agree with your reasoning on
this.

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Again, I just don't agree.

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So is Outlook, so let's use Outlook as the reference product rather than
Excel, if you wish.

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I take it you aren't a software developer. There are several book on
WinForms programming that discuss the issues involved in building
Money-style UIs.

Let's hope MS reads this and gives it some thought.
Regards,
Mountain

"Paul Pedersen" <prpeders[at]nospam.pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:uiTix8T0DHA.2544[at]TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
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So would I but it doesn't matter. See http://www.bollar.org/msmoney/#Q66.
Besides, I'd bet the price would way more than double. Remember that Office
gets paid for by millions of companies worldwide. How many of them will pop
for licenses of Extensible Money? Look at what some of the other
support-intensive, narrow market, software costs. Things like Visual Studio
and AutoCAD.

"Paul Pedersen" <prpeders[at]nospam.pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:u2gavzV0DHA.604[at]tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
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OK, fine, double the price. I'd still pay it in a minute for a great
product.


"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:eqrIKcU0DHA.2544[at]TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
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I don't buy the +Business versions. Oh, and remember that Microsoft gets a
lot less than the $60 you paid.

I agree that a more powerful and flexible Money would be nice, but you've
identified the issue: they feel they have to dumb it down since their target
market has to be a whole lot broader than "computer geek." Would what I've
referred to over the years as Extensible Money be cool for us geeks? Sure.
But read the NG for a while. It'd be over the head of 95% of the market.
Support costs would go through the roof. That'd have to run the price of the
product--already tailored to a narrow market--up. Way up. Then even fewer
people would buy it. It's an ugly problem.

I guess I don't think of Excel as terribly robust in the sense that it is
NOT a database worth a darn and Money is, at it's core, a database problem.
I also don't necessarily agree that "the Money-style GUI is much more
expensive to build." More expensive than what? Read the NG. Lots of users
are mystified by many aspects of the product the way it is. A blank-screen
product like Excel would never get out of the starting gate. Besides,
they've wrapped it all around IE to do all of the heavy lifting. They are
making extensive use of all of the DHTML/XML/CSS stuff. (Wasn't all of this
stuff developed to make development easier?) They haven't made much change
in outward appearance of the UI in six versions (and most of those have been
gratuitous dumbing-down and busying-up like Use Transaction Forms everywhere
and Make Recurring where R-click|Add... works just fine.

"Mountain Bikn' Guy" <vc[at]attbi.com> wrote in message
news:RifJb.99141$VB2.224290[at]attbi_s51...
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Boy, wouldn't that be nice. I'd buy it in a minute.

"Mountain Bikn' Guy" <vc[at]attbi.com> wrote in message
news:RifJb.99141$VB2.224290[at]attbi_s51...
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Yes, you are right. However, I always seem to end up paying about $60 each
year (personal + business version) to upgrade.

And personally, what I would like to see is a product more at the level of
sophistication of Excel or Word. In other words, I think a personal finance
product that had sophisticated features (such as a macro language, for
example) would be a big improvement. Excel and Word are not perfect, but MS
could surely build a Money-type product at that level. I guess they have
spent a lot of R&D dollars trying to build to the lowest common denominator
(I believe the Money-style GUI is much more expensive to build, for
example). For me, this has resulted in a frustrating product that isn't
powerful or flexible enough to meet my requirements. On the other hand,
since this is "personal finance" the powerful double-entry systems aren't to
my liking either.

I'm looking for the "Excel of personal finance" with all the convenience
features of Money, but the sophistication (and robustness) of Excel.


"Dick Watson" <littlegreengecko[at]mind-enufalready-spring.com> wrote in
message news:urds33M0DHA.1996[at]TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
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Hard to argue that it couldn't be done. Going to the moon was do-able. But
Microsoft has thrown a fair amount of money down this rathole over the past
decade+ and still have, what, 30% market share compared to Q? And selling at
$10 or less per copy won't pay from some new startup to do it, either. Also
note the present relative languishing state of GNUcash.

"Mountain Bikn' Guy" <vc[at]attbi.com> wrote in message
news:F%2Jb.253637$_M.1159888[at]attbi_s54...
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"Ken Martin" <KennethRMartin[at]aol.com> wrote in message
news:ucOZdcM0DHA.1684[at]TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
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"Ken Martin" <KennethRMartin[at]aol.com> wrote in message
news:ucOZdcM0DHA.1684[at]TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
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Thanks for the info on this problem in 2004.

It seems to me someone could build better personal finance software than
either Money or Quicken...

Regards,
Mountain

The new version 2004 doesn't fix this problem. I have never been able to
cancel a hung update with 2004 or 2003, on this computer or my previous one.
It seems that Microsoft just propagates the bugs from one version to the
next.

The only way I have been able to get out of this is to right click the
taskbar, bring up the Task Manager, and kill MSM Money application. I then
restart MSN Money and go for my updates again. Most times it works the
second time, sometimes I need to repeat it.

"Mountain Bikn' Guy" <vc[at]attbi.com> wrote in message
news:xSKIb.182432$8y1.582934[at]attbi_s52...
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In microsoft.public.money, Mountain Bikn' Guy wrote:

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I can produce the symptom by disabling data at the modem during the
time a response comes back. The better your connection is, the less
often it would occur. I think it times out eventually for me, but
takes a long time.

If you can identify which data source is the one that is not coming
back with the data usually, you could uncheck that one when
updating. If you set up background banking, the communication is
done in the background. So you would not be hung up. That might be a
decent workaround for you.


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No, I don't know the details myself. I find it to be strange.

Hi Cal,
Thanks again. Is there anything I can do on my end to fix this (rather than
the work around you suggested)? Do the new versions (2004) fix it?

BTW, I'm a programmer, so you comment caught my attention. Can you provide
any more details on what procedure so I can understand the problem better?
Thanks.
Regards,
Mountain

"Cal Learner-- MVP" <via_newsgroup[at]please.tnx> wrote in message
news:tem6vvss6h1ljccag3mjs1a78n81s29dos[at]4ax.com...
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In microsoft.public.money, Mountain Bikn' Guy wrote:

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It appears that Windows may not have the procedure available to the
programmers.

Thanks! I'll try this. Any idea what the underlying cause is?
Regards,
Mountain
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In microsoft.public.money, Mountain Bikn' Guy wrote:

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That is an unfortunate situation.


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Brent said "I have had success by going to Control Panel > Network
Connections and right-clicking > Disable on the Internet
connection. Money apparently detects the loss of the Internet
connection and completes the programs if at all possible."

Hi,
When I initiate an Internet Update in Money 2002, the Call
Progress dialog comes up and says Updating Provider Data and sits
there literally FOREVER. I have let it continue overnight even -- but
it never completes. Selecting "Cancel" causes the dialog to display a
"Cancelling..." message, but that never completes either. The only way
to get out of the situation is to end the Money process (end task in Task
Manager).

I'm using Money 2003 (personal & business edition) with Win2k (and all the
latest
service packs and updates). I have a good, reliable cable modem. No other
software
has any problems accessing the Internet. This is related strictly to Money.
It has been
happening since I upgraded to 2003 about a year ago. This problem happens
roughly
9 of every 10 attempts to perform Internet Updates. They only workaround I
have
found is to update each account individually.

(Unless I can find a fix, I'm switching to Quicken for my next upgrade.)

I found some prior posts on this problem -- but no solution was offered:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e...om%26rnum%3D13

I hope someone can shed some light on this for me. TIA!

Mountain