Inuit pulling plug on some Quicken versions, triggering lawsuit

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46992-2004Apr3.html



Panned Obsolescence

By Mike Musgrove
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 4, 2004; Page F07

Intuit Inc. is getting ready to pull the plug on support for some of its 
older personal finance-management products.

Starting April 20, Quicken 98 and Quicken 99 users will no longer get 
online or phone-based tech support; on May 18, Quicken 2000 users will be 
on their own as well.

On those dates, those users will also lose the ability to pay their bills 
online with the program and download updated financial data from Intuit's 
servers -- instead of zapping off their utility bills and having the latest 
stock prices automatically plugged into their portfolios, they'll get error 
messages.

Their option will be to spend $39.95 to upgrade to Quicken 2004 Deluxe -- 
that's including a $20 mail-in rebate -- or to go back to putting paper 
checks in the mail and typing in stock quotes manually.

Why is Intuit retiring these older versions when they still work fine? A 
spokesman for the company said that older products like Quicken 98 
essentially represent depreciating assets on the company's balance sheet.

"It costs money to provide the data feeds," said Chris Repetto, a public 
relations manager for Quicken at Intuit. "It's taking money away from us 
developing new products."

Repetto would not put a figure on how much money is involved in keeping 
older programs supported and said there is no set rule for when Intuit 
retires its products. He said the company estimates that the affected users 
add up to "less than 1 percent" of its total customer base.

Intuit has been alerting owners of these older releases via pop-up Internet 
notices in the program and e-mail messages. It has more information online 
at 
<http://www.intuit.com/support/quicken/sunset/>www.intuit.com/support/quicken/sunset/.

Some of the affected members, meanwhile, have alerted their lawyers: A 
group of users filed a class-action lawsuit against the company in San Jose 
last week. Intuit had no comment about the pending litigation.

<snip> 

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