. . . continued from Hot News Most of the complaints center on Intuit's essential declaration that it's dropping support for the older versions. While I defend anyone's right to extract every last ounce of value out of their purchases, the fact remains that since 2001 a lot of factors have wreaked minor havoc on the compatibility and viability of older financial software. PC and Mac operating systems have changed, hardware has changed, PC and Mac connectivity has speeded up and become more secure, financial institutions have revamped their processes and security measures, and there are millions more people accessing their financial information online. Most of this has taken place for two reasons: a) customers have demanded it, and b) any company which fails to evolve, improve and offer new products will rapidly disappear into the aforementioned boiling ocean. For the complainers, dreaming that the fifty dollar purchase you made four or five years ago will somehow magically be maintained in perpetuity, eventually with massive and free upgrades simply due to the age of the software in question, is laughably unrealistic. The notion that a program can be written which predicts all eventualities, thereby providing some means of remote improvement over time (read: downloadable upgrades), suggests that software engineers, programmers and product managers are somehow plugged into an oracle. Some of the SOHO and small business owners out there must think they can avoid the cost of financial management altogether.

The demands of today require that someone, somewhere, create a specification which encompasses the needs and demands which have been defined so that the appropriate software can be developed.

Think again. Bookkeeping companies and accounting firms update their software annually. So what makes you think that running your own business somehow means that you don't have to keep up?

The demands of today require that someone, somewhere, create a specification which encompasses the needs and demands which have been defined so that the appropriate software can be developed. A little minor risk in the form of rational predictions and additional features is always thrown in for good measure. After all, individual software makers don't exist in a vacuum. They talk with other companies at industry meetings, conventions and exhibitions. They may not share their proprietary data or source code, but everybody needs everybody to some extent just in order to stay abreast of what's happening out there. So they all take their best shot and come up with products which, by definition, have a certain and reasonable shelf life.

The problem is, the best plans have a way of going awry because of events which are hard to predict. Simply being aware that a technology is coming, doesn't bestow the wisdom to know the form in which it will arrive. Online security is perfect example. Wireless connectivity is another (for Pete's sake, don't buy so-called "Pre-N" routers and wireless cards—the 802.11n standard won't be settled until well into 2006). There's more, but you get the idea. So if you demand certain features and functions in the software you plan to buy, don't be shocked when those feature and functions actually show up in a new version, as opposed to an upgrade to an older version.

It's possible for software makers to take two steps forward and one step back. ACD Systems turned the perfectly wonderful and delightful ACDSee 3 into the big, puffy ACDSee 6. ACDSee 7 is much better, thank you very much. It's an example of how a really good software company can get carried away. Quicken, on the other hand is not unneccesarily bloated, although it has a large number of features and functions which have been requested by Quicken users. That fact coupled with the growing demands of banking and financial security, seem to have made Quicken a much better product than it was two years ago, three years ago, five years ago and so on. So why are people complaining about an impending lack of support for 2001 and 2002 versions? Did they honestly believe that Intuit can somehow continue to support their needs for a lousy fifty bucks (or whatever it was they paid, after rebate, when the software was originally purchased)? It's an unrealistic expectation.

Intuit appears to govern its decisions about legacy version support primarily by paying attention to which versions are being used by the vast majority of its customers. But Intuit also pays attention to its bottom line with respect to where it's putting development and programming resources. After all, you can't maintain even a skeleton programming team to continue indefinitely updating older software versions—it's simply too expensive. Feature and security demands push older programming code into obsolescence.

By all means, try different things. By all means, switch when it's appropriate to do so. But never believe the grass is greener on the other side of the hard drive. Above all else, stop trying to con me (and Intuit) into believing that you truly think a fifty dollar software purchase should remain fully compatible and supported in the face of the enormous demands that you make of the software and its usefulness in a rapidly changing landscape.

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