Intuit discounts Quicken as MS Money fades

With Redmond discontinuing Microsoft Money, Intuit is offering a series of discounts aimed to lure more folks to use its Quicken personal finance product.

In a blog posting, Intuit said it is offering the discounts on Quicken products through the end of July to all users, not just the Money users left in the lurch.

Aiming to lure Microsoft Money users, Intuit is offering a series of discounts on Quicken through the end of July.

(Credit: Intuit)

Specifically, Intuit said that it is offering $20 off on Quicken Deluxe (now $39.99) and $30 off Quicken Premier (now $59.99). It is also chopping $30 off its Home & Business product and $50 off its Rental Property Manager product. The company is also touting its free Quicken Online product.

Although Quicken is already the market leader in the personal finance space, Intuit clearly sees a chance to move in for the kill now that Microsoft is exiting the space.

Intuit also reiterated that it is working with Microsoft to try to improve Quicken's ability to import large amounts of data stored in MS Money.

"We've been working closely with Microsoft to develop an easy-to-use way for MS Money users to transfer years of financial information into Quicken products," Quicken said in the blog. "We'll keep working on it."

As first reported by CNET News last week, Microsoft plans to halt sales of Microsoft Money at the end of this month.

[Vegaman_Dan]

Wait- what?

I thought when you had less compeition that prices got higher, not lower.

[Renegade Knight]

There isn't less competition. MS Money threw in the towel. However several open source players, more than a few propriatary players, and variouse Web 2.0 players have all entered the fray.

When my Quicken "sunsetted" on me, I went and found another player. It took a few tries before I found a good one. However now I like them better.

[LaTene_Man]

Shows how much you understand marketing, Dan. They're enticing customers that had no other place to go. It's a perfect time to lower the price, to lure them in, and then they'll be "trapped" in upgrade cycles, paying full price.

X-Plane did a similar thing when Microsoft Flight Simulator was cancelled. X-Plane offered it at a discount to get new customers.

[yacahuma]

is this a monopoly?

Go mint.com!

I'm using their services for a while now and I am happy. I would love to have a more complex tool for budget purposes or life events planning, but a lot of other features just work much better than Money/Quicken.

[Mike+1]

I have owned and used both Quicken and MS Money, but prefer Quicken. Have not tried mint.com yet, but will look into it. Intuit has good products including TurboTax which I use personally and QuickBooks which we use in our small business. We find their technical support to be very reliable as well. It is refreshing to see them offering discounts when their main competitor is being discontinued, but I understand it is ultimately to gain more customers. Looks like a win-win to me. Time will tell...

[wdowell]

What do we do in the UK? Intuit closed down over here! Help!

[jsibelius]

I used MS Money for years. I finally had to buy it when it didn't come with my last computer. But I requested a refund and bought Quicken when Money had turned off all ability to manually enter transactions. What a stupid move. No wonder people have abandoned ship.

[bmccaig]

How is it that Intuit is "moving in for the kill"? Microsoft rolled over and is playing dead on their own!! There's nothing left for Intuit to move in on!?!?!

Great move on the part of Intuit to gain more customers by offering the discounts, as it prevents the other customers from looking into other alternatives like mint.com. Externally, it looks good for Intuit as they appear to be playing nice for the MS Money customers.

[pcarrescia]

I have an idea. Instead of a price decrease, how about a service patch that fixes what is without a doubt the buggiest, slowest version (2009), that they've ever released?

[Renegade Knight]

Hey now. That's the new and improved upgrade that Quicken wants me to buy by turning off my 2006 version that worked just fine. Are you telling me they got worse and yet need more money for it?

[subie09lega]

I feel the same about Money 2008. Prior to this, I had 2000 and 2004. 2008 just doesn't run as well. Seems like they try to improve things and ultimately break them.

[billd888]

They are lowering the consumer prices and likely raising the cost for financial institutions to provide the OFX service. They always list the financial institutions that are participating and suggest just ask your bank or credit union to participate. Our CU gets billed more than $5000 annually for the minimal service we have agreed to with Intuit, I will not be surprised if this more than doubles with Microsoft out of the picture.

[gertruded]

Quicken can get no consideration until all the Money data can be transfered, not "working an getting it transfered".

[martin_c_e]

MS is just proving to everybody that they are not in it for the long run. So my copy of MS-Money Plus will continue to work on my XP machine, but probably won't be transferable to a new machine.

So, I was considering looking into ZUNE HD when it comes out; but, now I wonder if MS will support it. After all, they dumped msn music for Zune. MS just does not seem to know what business they are in.

[martin_c_e]

I have had Quicken twice before and learned to hate it for at least 2 reasons. One was not being able to get rid of all the ads. The second was that MSMoney has a better register option for entry and clarity.

[LaTene_Man]

They killed one of the best looking and one of the oldest flight simulators a few years ago too. They killed Flight Simulator, ticking off a LOT of people. I remember back before they bought it from SubLogic.

[mzupan]

Sounds to me like Intuit is using this as an opportunity to clear out their 2009 line stock to make way for the 2010 version. They typically release new versions each year around the June-August timeframe.