How Intuit managed to hold off Microsoft

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...

Overview of Intuit/Microsoft history http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/01/05/why_microsoft_wanted...

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.

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...

"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...

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.