The demise of Microsoft Money

Microsoft's announcement this week that it would discontinue the sale of Microsoft Money leaves just one main player among downloadable personal software products: Intuit's Quicken. Microsoft says Money downloads will no longer be available after June 30 of this year, and that customers must activate the software by January 31, 2011. Click here for more details on what Microsoft will continue to support, and for how long. 

In the June issue of Consumer Reports Money Adviser we reviewed both downloadable and online personal finance software, focusing how how well they tracked spending and budgeting. We found Microsoft Money Plus Deluxe and Quicken Deluxe 2009 both pretty similar, and pretty good. Microsoft Money had many of the same features as Quicken, but was easier on the eye. Both provided lots of different ways to display transactions, trends, and the like. Indeed, for those folks who will be switching over, Quicken has all the bells and whistles you'll need.

If you just can't abide going with the market leader, there's another downloadable competitor, AceMoney. It's a little more reasonably priced: $30 versus the $40 we paid for the others, plus no additional fee for later upgrading. While it offers a number of the same functions as Money and Quicken, we found its graphics rudimentary. It also lacked the variety of reports for analysis that the other products offered. But you can check out a free, more limited version, AceMoney Lite, and see how you like it.

Reducing the number of entries in this field isn't good for consumers, who benefit when like products compete. But with the advent of free, server-based products, such as Yodlee Money Center, Mint and Geezeo, maybe Microsoft determined that the days of the download were numbered. (Quicken still sells both a downloadable version and a CD.)

Perhaps Microsoft will take a cue from Intuit, which recently launched Quicken Online, an admirable free online service we found easier to use–though less comprehensive–than traditional Quicken. We also reviewed Yodlee, Mint, and Geezeo. We found ad-free Yodlee most comprehensive. And while the much-publicized Mint offers much to like, at this point in its development it doesn't let you input checks that haven't yet cleared, as the other three do. So unless all your transactions are electronic, you can't really know how much is left in your account to spend.

All of that means nothing to folks who balk at parking their financial information on a server. For them, the loss of old-style personal finance software–as if any software can be considered old-style–is a letdown. Hail and farewell, Microsoft Money, a worthy competitor.–Tobie Stanger