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yet another Microsoft blogger

# Monday, August 06, 2007

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Software + Services and Microsoft Money

I absolutely empathize with this post on Software + Services by Zoli. As a long time user of Microsoft Money, I am this close to outsourcing the software part to Wesabe... but like Zoli there are a few features that I use in Money that are critical to my life:

  • Ability to itemize a paycheck
  • Ability to see in real time what my Federal Tax Liability us (requires you to Itemize your paycheck).
  • Ability to manage my loan accounts (including mortgage), as well as Brokerage Accounts (like my 401K).

This past weekend I got the most horrible and scary warning from Money. Just reading the instructions on how to keep using Money with Online Banking is enough to make this computer professional run screaming from my office. The instructions are 24 freaking pages!!! longer than the manual for the product. I seriously almost went to the "Add / Remove Programs" Control Panel to fix the problem. Luckily for me I was some how spared the misery of sinking 2 - 4 hours into Money. I did not have to update anything. Lucky me... for now.

Now, I don't agree that Microsoft lacks Customer Focus. That's saying that all 70,000 employees lack customer focus. I'm pretty sure the folks who work on Microsoft Money are crying about this update right now (at least the Tech Support folks are), but I suspect that since money was put out to pasture years ago, there is very little "big investment" in this product... and Customer Focus requires real investment.

It's so dammed easy to generalize when your personal experience is colored, especially in the wrong way. Zoli (and all the folks dealing with this nightmare) have a right to be pissed. So do the folks that went through the horrible horrible Money 2004 (or was it 2005) update where I lost a good day or so of my life. However, there is plenty of Customer Focus at Microsoft, at least that's my experience.

Software
Posted Monday, August 06, 2007    Permalink    Comments [5]  View blog reactions

 

Monday, August 06, 2007 11:50:19 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)
I am trying out something new which is web based and so far its pretty good, it's called spendview.com. I got sick and tired of using Money and Quicken, Spendview is definately light years ahead....
Jeff Kaye
Monday, August 06, 2007 11:51:21 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)
Hi Omar,

Thanks for responding to my post. I certainly don't mean to imply that "all 70,000 employees lack customer focus". They may all have the best intentions, it's the end result that counts: The products.

You lost a good day of your life to MS Money a few years ago. I think it we add up the time spent with bungled patches, rebuilding Outlook profiles..etc, we (computer users) ALL lost days of our lives to Microsoft.

That's bad enough, but can mostly be attributed to unintentional technical glitches. The Money Online Update was "crossing the Rubicon", IMHO: Somebody in Microsoft had to make a decision that it was OK to cut off customers access to their financials without first telling them, giving them options, or even apologizing after the fact. That makes the *company* blatantly ignorant - despite the best intentions of those 70K employees.

I've just subscribed to your blog, btw :-)

Zoli Erdos
Monday, August 06, 2007 12:52:55 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)
Thanks for the Wesabe recommendation Omar. Signed up and it seems to be very slick. Fortunately I do not need a ton of advanced features as my needs are fairly basic when it comes to personal finance. Tried Money 2005 a few years ago and it frustrated me no end.

Jamie
Monday, August 06, 2007 4:21:44 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)
Yeah, I couldn't believe that update message from Money. As soon as I saw what the update entailed, I shuddered. I had to do that horrible merging thing before, when I was trying unsuccessfully to set up an account, and it was a nightmare then. To have to do it to all my accounts would probably push me into the "Fuck it, this isn't worth it" camp, and I update Money on a daily basis right now.

Fortunately, I ignored the message and nothing seems to have happened, so either they figured out a way not to screw me over, or else they just pushed the date back and I'm going to be scrod yet. I really have no way of knowing, I guess.

So that's a plus. On the minus side, I can't get my Capital One credit card to work at all. It keeps wanting me to link my passport account and then put my stuff up on MSN for no apparent reason, which isn't happening.

It's too bad Intuit is such a terrible, terrible company making awful, awful products, because this is a perfect place for a customer-focused company to really just kill Microsoft. But no, they've decided to compete on evil pettiness instead.
Mike Kozlowski
Monday, August 06, 2007 4:24:54 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)
Hi, Omar,

I'm from Wesabe. Thanks much for giving the site a try and letting us know what you need from it.

You can itemize your paycheck using tag splits. We have a video about how to do that here:

http://www.wesabe.com/page/tag_splits

We do also support brokerage cash accounts (accounts used like checking accounts) -- this is a new feature, so it may have some rough edges, but it's there.

We don't currently have loan account support, but we intend to add it very soon.

If you have any other requests or want help getting going, feel free to drop me a line at marc at wesabe dot com. And thanks again.

Marc Hedlund
Marc Hedlund
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