Mac Quicken Gets Deductions for Iffy Upgrade
Despite all of the success Apple (AAPL) has had with its Macintosh computers, the Mac has lagged behind Windows in personal-finance software. — The most popular program in the category, Intuit's Quicken, comes in a Mac version.
Context & Ripple Effects
Intuit spent mid-2009 promising that a rebuilt Quicken for Mac would finally ship in February, per its own Quicken blog, ending a long stretch during which Mac owners were stuck with an aging version while Windows users got annual refreshes. The program arrived on schedule this week — and critics immediately gave it poor marks for being an underwhelming upgrade.
The stakes come from the platform side: even with the success Apple has had with Macintosh hardware, including the market-share gains analysts flagged back in 2007, the Mac still lags Windows in personal-finance software, and Quicken is the most popular program in that category. A weak flagship release leaves the Mac's biggest software gap unaddressed at exactly the moment its user base is growing.
First-order effects
- Mac users who waited out Intuit's multi-year development cycle now have a brand-new Quicken for Mac that reviewers say does little more than the old one, making an upgrade purchase hard to justify right now.
Second-order effects
- With Intuit's Mac offering judged underwhelming, the personal-finance gap on the Mac stays open — an invitation for rival finance software and web-based alternatives to court Mac users who Quicken fails to convert.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Mac hardware share gains will keep outrunning the platform's software depth, forcing major Windows-first vendors like Intuit to choose between sustained native investment and ceding categories on the Mac to newer entrants.
The trend: The Mac's rise as a mainstream computing platform is exposing how far its application ecosystem — personal finance foremost — trails Windows parity, and vendor follow-through like Intuit's is lagging the installed-base opportunity.