Quicken 2005 Policy Angers Competitors and Customers

Software firms, competitiors, and financial institutions unhappy with Intuit's dropping of QIF import in Quicken 2005. One small firm urges businesses to contact Quicken in protest.

(PRWEB) December 21, 2004 -- A tiny competitor of the company that makes the popular Quicken personal finance software is acting like the mouse that roared by urging the small business community to contact Intuit asking that the maker of Quicken 2005 not drop the QIF import format.

Adams-Blake Company, Inc. markets a web-based "back office" system for small and home-based business. One of the features of their Jaya123 (http://www.jaya123.com) order-entry and invoice system is that the user can output a file of paid receipts and later import it into Quicken.

"It's a major feature of our system, and Intuit has pulled the rug out from under us," says Alan Canton, president of the small Fair Oaks, CA company. The new version of Quicken 2005 will no longer accept import files in QIF format; the format that has become an industry standard.

The QIF format is used by many banks, financial institutions, and software companies to transfer data into Quicken and other software packages. Intuit announced that not only would it no longer put this function into Quicken 2005, but that a new format, called QFX, would not be accepted unless Intuit is paid a fee by those wishing to create import files.

"I don't know if I'd call it extortion, but I would call it both greed and bad business," says Canton whose company will refuse to pay any fee to their giant rival. Jaya123 subscribers are urged to not upgrade to Quicken 2005. The company is telling new customers who might want to use the import feature to find an older version of Quicken, widely available from software outlets as well as on eBay, or to use an alternative program like AceMoney, Gnucash, or Microsoft Money.

"The big banks can afford to pay Intuit," says Canton. "But little guys like us, companies who compete with them will be hurt, at least in the short term." In addition to paying a fee, banks and other institutions will have to re-program their systems at significant cost in order to comply with Intuit's 2005 version of Quicken.

Intuit ran into serious customer resistance two years ago when they added an intrusive copy-protection "lock" to their Turbo-Tax product. The reaction of their customers was loud and furious, such that Intuit abandoned the practice the following year.

While Adams-Blake Company has not started an official "boycott Quicken" website, they are thinking about doing it if no one else does. While there is a lot of anger and confusion in the small business sector and among software vendors, the larger financial players, banks and brokerage houses, are just learning about Intuit's new policy, even though the company made it public over a year ago.

Canton notes that his firm's online Jaya123 competes directly with Intuit's Quickbooks-On-The-Web system, and he wonders if maybe the QIF issue is in part Intuit's response to that competition. He points out that Microsoft was taken to court for similar anti-competitive actions so maybe there is a chance the government will step in and "persuade" Intuit to keep the QIF functions in their products.

In the meantime he's posting to Internet blogs and newsgroups, sending media releases, and giving interviews urging the business community to contact Intuit and protest the policy. Asked if he thinks his efforts will work, he replies "Customers can be very persuasive. When was the last time you saw a six pack of New Coke?"

note: JAYA ('ja-eye-ah' or 'jay-ah') means 'victory' in Sanskrit

Company info
Adams-Blake Company, Inc of Fair Oaks, CA is the provider of the Jaya123 (http://www.jaya123.com) web-based office system for small and home based businesses. Jaya123 does order-entry, accounting, invoicing, reporting, and inventory without the need to install any software. Monthly subscriptions start at $14.95 a month.

###