

How Intuit managed to hold off Microsoft - yef
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10262344-56.html

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madh
Don't forget that in 1994 Microsoft agreed to buy Intuit, at the time clearly
recognizing the value of the company--in particular the annual updates that
70%+ of customers bought. It would have been the largest software company
acquisition in history at $1.5 bn in stock but fell apart under DoJ scutiny.

Article comparing failure to buy Intuit to the failure to buy Yahoo!
[http://techland.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/05/13/what-
micros...](http://techland.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/05/13/what-microsoft-
will-do-next/)

Overview of Intuit/Microsoft history
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/01/05/why_microsoft_wanted...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/01/05/why_microsoft_wanted_to_buy/print.html)

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wglb
In the early days, I heard that with the Intuit product, they would go home
with the early buyers of the product and write down every annoyance, small or
large, that users had with the product. I can't help but think that led to
building better products and increased market share.

If this is in fact the case, it is a little counter to how many things are
built, presuming that 1) everything can be automated and 2) a developer eating
his own dogfood while using the app may not be quite enough resolution for how
well it works for grandma. Working with actual paying retail customers, in
person, does not sound like it is the culture of Microsoft.

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euroclydon
They didn't kill the product, just the retail shrink-wrapped sales channel.
They said that there were not enough changes left to make which would warrant
another major version.

[http://www.hunterstrat.com/news/microsoft-money-plus-
skips-2...](http://www.hunterstrat.com/news/microsoft-money-plus-
skips-2009-update-ends-retail-box-sales/)

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edw519
"It really has very little to do with technology," said Cape, who is now CEO
of Cozi, a Seattle-based start-up. "What Intuit and Scott Cook were so
formidable at was consumer marketing. He treated marketing Intuit very much
the same way as one would treat marketing a bar of soap or bottle of shampoo.
He made Quicken a household name. He spent outrageous dollars to get there."

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Microsoft products have always
had more to do with marketing than technology. He's just upset that someone
beat him at his own game.

"In many ways, Money was the precursor to Microsoft's "software plus services"
strategy, in which the company posits that desktop software won't be replaced
by online options, but will rather lead to hybrid products."

It's only a matter of time before online options replace desktop software, and
everyone knows it, even Microsoft. Problem is that they can't admit it yet or
they kill their cash cow prematurely.

"Managing your family logistics and your family calendar is about as fun as
managing your personal finances," Cape said. "It's not exciting. What we've
done at Cozi, which is very much like what we tried very hard to do on Money,
is to take that mundane, ho-hum experience and not only make it fun but also
make it beautiful."

People have been trying to do this for 30 years and it's never worked. Why?
Because optional consumer activities (like familty logistics and family
calendar) are easier to do with pencil and paper or, better yet, _not at all_.
Even though many of us spend much more time in front of a computer, many of us
still don't, and certainly not enough to use a "family app". OTOH, a smart
phone app...

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sarvesh
I think author is giving too much credit to Intuit. Intuit was and in many
ways is still ignorant about the fundamental change in developing software
products. Mint apart from the fact that it is web based is also much smarter
than Quicken. Having all the financial data is good but without analysis
Quicken is still pretty much returning you a fancy view of their database. The
shift towards software products that are quicker and smarter in analyzing data
is here, much more important than adding XmlHttpRequests to your app, you can
adapt or kill your product like Microsoft did.

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old-gregg
Bullshit. Intuit has been successfully fighting Microsoft for a _very, very
long time_ , well before Mint, well before Google maps and before ViaWeb +
what followed.

According to you, USSR collapsed and dinosaurs became extinct also because
they didn't grok the potential of XmlHttpRequest. Not everything revolves
around webapps.

Frankly, I have no idea how Intuit did it, they're probably the only desktop
competitor Microsoft hadn't crush, and this article didn't really give me any
plausible clues as to why.

~~~
sarvesh
If you read my post I am saying that XmlHttpRequest on its own will do no
good. Agreed Intuit good a really good job in the 90s but that's over.

