Money 2005 Rant

[Onyxpurr]

How does MS get away with it?!?!

I purchased a 2005 version to update from my 2004 trial. 2004 worked great! I couldn't get anything done in 2005. Essentially I bought a non-working product.

I thought it might just be me, but I checked online newsgroups and everyone is having problems (especially with bill pay).

Is it just me or is MS getting worse and worse? How much longer do you think MS can stay successful when they'e products are extremely buggy?

 

[YouEnjoyMyself]

Deep Fried turkeys love to be eaten gobble gobble!!

 

[pmonett]

Remember that version of Office that was all but incompatible with the one it was supposed to "upgrade" ?
MS got truckloads of negative press on that, but in the end users just grumbled and snatched up the new version anyway.

Why ?

One answer : who else sells an Office suite and has a name on the market ?

When you say PC today to the clueless Joe Anybody on the street, what is the single name he can think of ? Microsoft.

Yeah, I know about Linux, about Sun, about OpenOffice, Java, IBM and the rest. I read about it every day. You think everybody does ?

Ninty nine percent of PC users view their PC as a tool, the same as a wrench or a screwdriver. I don't have the faintest idea which is the best brand for a screwdriver, do you ? A technician does. And he probably laments the stuff sold in supermarkets, while he treasures whatever model he has and knows why.

People get to know very quickly just how much MS software can be frustrating, but they have no idea of what else exists. So they complain, and buy more MS software.

In short, it ain't gonna change anytime soon. Not unless a very powerful (rich) group gets together to make an alternative product and spend billions on marketing it.

After all, you complain about MS Money, but you didn't buy Quicken (it may be an even worse product, I don't know either of them). A simple search for "personal financial software" on Google gives a number of alternatives (including GnuCash - open source !!). Did you ask yourself what were the alternatives before buying MS ?
I'm not bashing you, even if YOU did check out alternatives and made a knowledgeable decision based on your personal situation, 99% of the market will just see MS Money and snap it up - because its a Microsoft product and outside of that, they don't even know what exists. And, more importantly, they don't know that they can search for other solutions.

Pascal.

 

[Onyxpurr]

Well, I loved the earlier versions of Money, and so I did return the 2005 version for the 2004. I haven't had any bugs at all.

MS pulled me in because they give free trial versions with just about every pc with their o/s. Ever since I started trying it out, I've loved it. I was just irritated with this last version.

Which I even surprised myself in buying, because my own personal mantra is never to buy the latest release of anything MS. I was a diehard fan of Windows '98 until 2000 was out for a while, then I switched when XP came out.

All in all, I do like MS. I just think they're a little too big for their britches in releasing their newest software with known bugs. Big bugs! Godzilla sized roaches! LOL