I saw a monkey dance in the Philippines once....
I'm still using Quicken 2004 on the Mac. Does everything I need. Which is why the MacBook Pro is still on 10.6. and the new Macbook is latest OS, 10.12.?
I've got 2016 with no plans to update until 2019. I do use the software to access my bank accounts and credit cards directly (the only thing that will actually stop working) but I prefer to save the fees for the two upgrades and see what competitors come in to fill the breach.Also from their site.
@murphey yours isn't on the list so I guess it never expires
Quicken Product Discontinuation Date
Quicken for Mac 2007 and 2007 for Lion* October, 2016
Quicken 2014 US April 30, 2017
Quicken 2014 Canada May 31, 2017
Quicken 2015 Windows and Mac April 30, 2018
Quicken 2016 Windows and Mac April 30, 2019
Quicken 2017 US Windows and Mac April 30, 2020
Quicken Subscription Products 1 - 2 years from purchase date
Quicken Premium Support One year from purchase date or upon subscription expiration
*Assisted support and product updates for Quicken for Mac 2007 and 2007 for Lion was discontinued when Quicken for Mac 2017 was released in October, 2016. The Mac 2007 product and connected services will continue to function until your financial institutions choose to discontinue online support. Please see this FAQ for more details.
The problem I see is that to use my own data I will be required to pay a subscription fee basically forever. Not interested in being held hostage like that. I don't mind paying for upgrades once in a while, but I do mind being forced to pay whether they are delivering any additional value or not. And IMO "or not" is the likely outcome of this.
If you stop paying for the subscription, you will still be able to enter transactions manually, just like when your three years expired with the previous versions. I understand that people don't like the subscription model. I didn't either, when other software started going that way, but that's the way it is nowadays.
Of course things can and do change. But you can say that about any replacement you're thinking of getting.
YMMV, but I view the probability of MoneyDance suddenly encrypting my local data file and holding it hostage to be low probability. I view the probability of some new VP/Finance at Quicken deciding to goose revenue by taking some hostages as much higher. Remember, the buyer of Quicken is a private equity firm looking to turn its investment for a profit ASAP. Dollars drive that business. Making customers happy is only a necessary evil, not an end in itself.
Do you think Moneydance is run by a group of selfless citizens? How long do you think they can stay in business doing that? Actually I tried Moneydance a few years ago since Quicken for Mac was terrible compared to Quicken Windows, which I had been using. But the Mac version of Quicken has improved so I quit using Moneydance even though I had paid for the program initially. They are all businesses, and their goal is to make money.
Actually I'll give you a ray of hope on that: Now that Adobe has made their popular "LightRoom" software subscription-only, there are four or five software companies racing to develop LightRoom workalikes and advertising the fact that they will be licensing the software rather than selling subscriptions. So I am expecting/aka hoping to see the same thing in the personal finance space.
If Quicken changes their policies, I may switch software too, but I have no problem giving them the benefit of the doubt at this point.
I've been a Quicken user since just about day one. I've never linked it to bank, credit card, stock or any other type of account. Don't use their Bill Pay, I just use the Bill Pay in my Banks site. It's a Check Register substitute for me. But I do use a lot of the functions like having it enter my 'recurring transactions' six months in advance and being able to enter other 'non recurring' ones that I know are coming up to get a projection of where I'm going to be a few months down the road. I have more than a couple accounts and move money between them a lot so the Transfer function is valuable to me. I actually move the money through the Banks site but having Quicken move it between 'registers' is a time saver. So what I'm wondering about this 'Hostage' thing is that is what you're saying is they could literally lock up my .QDF and .DAT files to make Quicken useless to me???? Could I stop that from happening by using my Firewall to 'block' them from access to my computer? I use none of their 'online' services so that wouldn't be a loss to me.
Why should you get out of suffering when we all have to suffer? LOL
@luvflyin, there are no rules to this game but I think you're pretty safe. For Quicken to go back and kill all the standalone product users would provoke such a s#1tstorm of bad PR and lawsuits that I don't think they would even consider it.
Thanks for the info. I think I'm going to pay the 'switching cost' of building my own program in a Spreadsheet to do what I want it do. It'll take some time. I know Excel but from what I've been reading here Microsoft is on the way to forcing the 'subscription' thing. Just had to replace my computer and got it with Office preloaded. I chose 2016 over 365 because I didn't like the subscription thing. That was the first I had heard of that. And then I had to download and install Quicken which was when I learned abot their subscription thing. Didn't like it but had no choice. I'm going to start weaning myself away from these guys
You may want to check out Open Office if you're starting a spreadsheet project from scratch. I've switched from Excel to OO for day-to-day stuff.
You might want to take a look at OpenOffice (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice). I haven't paid much attention to it lately, but it has a spreadsheet that is said to be an Excel workalike.
Yes. When I had my business we used the Great Plains Dynamics accounting package. They offered annual "maintenance" contracts costing $Thousands that included some nominal support plus copies of upgrades as they became available. If you skipped the maintenance contract for a couple of years, then wanted to re-up a contract to get a new version of Dynamics, you had to pay the fees for all the years you skipped before they would sell you the current year contract. As Theodore Roosevelt said: “If you've got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.”