Retirement of Passport (Windows Live ID) sign in for Microsoft Money 2002 - 2004

Passport (Windows Live ID) sign in is to be retired for Microsoft Money 2002 - 2004 on July 31, 2008

This will have the effect that older versions of Money (2002-4) will no longer support adding or usage of Passport credentials on Money data files.

For more information see FAQ Article 557.

MSN Money May Site update

The MSN Money website was updated yesterday.

The updates were very minor and caused little, if any downtime.

The most significant change was the replacement of the "Basic" Portfolio with an updated version (this has been available for preview for the past two months).

Retailers with Money in the UK

I've been out of the country a bit recently, as well as having had a short holiday in North Wales.

On my return, I was visiting relatives, and happened to go into a PC World store in Reading, Berkshire. Shops like this are not normally a place I visit, as I usually buy everything I want from Amazon, Play.com and other online retailers, but they are useful for me to browse in, especially if I am looking to buy something in the future and want to get a hands-on look.

I digress though.... what interested me was their software section. After parting myself from 97p for some scooby doo software (and a book) for my son (no idea why this software was so cheap..), and drooling over the 50" plasma screens, I walked around to see if Microsoft Money was on the shelf.

I found a couple of long shelves with 'Financial Software' above them - they were completely empty of all software (just one or two MYOB boxes (the business accounting software) at £199 hiding away at the bottom where it was difficult to see them).

If one of the larger retailers no longer appears to stock the software (didn't have time to find an assistant to check), then that doesn't really bode that well for Microsoft Money in the UK. It's still selling it on Amazon, but even there it appears to be only third party sellers.

Of course, the software is still useable, and even when the quotes are due to expire in December 2009 (the Microsoft link is no longer available), the software can still be used.

It's a pity that Intuit announced the termination of Quicken in the UK, but Microsoft have yet to confirm the suspicions that many people have.

I see a gap in the market which should be exploited by one of the minor players, such as Personal Accountz - if the two big players are gone, people struggling with debt and general tightening of people's finances, what a better time to try and get a product into retail channels.

My day job involves .NET development, but I don't have the time to write a program myself. Many years ago my father wrote one in FoxPro - but neither of us have the program or the code any more, which is a shame as I'd open-source it. I really wish I had the time to write a PFM which addressed the needs as I see them in the marketplace... I am seeking new employment at present, so I'll gladly talk to companies that write such software

PC Pro Campaign - Forum Posting of my thoughts

PC Pro's campaign for a new version of Money is gathering some pace, as they've received 400 emails from people wanting a new version. Although I'm doubtful this will change the minds of the Microsoft people who make these decisions, it is an interesting story to follow.

I decided to answer a couple of questions and put my thoughts together (you may not agree with them, that's fine ;-)). Here's what I posted to their forum:

When Quicken pulled out of the UK market 6 or 7 years ago, it seemed that the writing was on the wall for Microsoft Money over here. Little competition meant that Microsoft didn't need to do much to make the product succeed.

Since that time, some new competition has emerged (personal accountz for one), but this isn't big enough to worry Microsoft, and duly we see a lack of new product for 3.5 years

In the US, things are different, not only with competition (I believe Quicken is #1 there) but also with banks competing with each other. You see a product which is being developed for the US market - integration with banks being an area where banks feel they 'have' to be as all of their competitors are doing it. Money is following this over there, and is being driven for the desires of that audience and not ours.

This isn't to say there aren't new features: Since the last version in the UK (Money 2005, released in 2004), the product has had tighter integration with US account aggregation services (Yodlee/CashEdge), a new budget, better backup and the reintroduction of the toolbar tool (now known as 'Insights'). The latter 3 parts would be of benefit to the UK, but one would wonder how much?

I noticed one post above commenting about the Financial Insitutions - I doubt many of them really care that much about the data export - it's a direct cost to them and probably doesn't bring in any significant business. It may just be us current users who cause it to continue to be provided.

Of course there is code clean up so it's a lot less buggy than 2005 and doesn't have that annoying patch that is required when installing.

So, would they bring it to the UK? The longer time goes on, the more work is required to regionalise the functionality because of the new features. The more work, the more cost. Economically, they may be able to do it, but this might mean a download-only version, to reduce costs of artwork, printing etc. It might not win them many friends at some of the retail stores.

One thing to note that it is possible to get hold of the US version in the UK (see FAQ Article 535), but you cannot directly convert from the UK to the US version (you have to go through hoops of exporting as QIF and then importing it). I doubt many people are prepared to do that, unless their files are small. The US product does work here (although the Nationwide integration would not) - I use this version.

I've been involved with the US and UK Money teams through the Microsoft MVP program for about 9 years now. In that time, I've seen 7 UK products come through. Each year I ask myself 'are there enough new or updated features that can justify upgrading?'. In many years, it's been a 'no'. Currently, based on the US SKU, it might once again be 'yes'.

For those of you wanting the history, see the latest article (April 25th) and the Open Letter to Microsoft.