Quicken-for-mac Historier
Quicken Home and Business is the best and most perfect solution for our very small businesses. I have looked for a long time for something that would do what Quicken H&B does and there is no equal. Two years ago I switched to a Mac. I would really love to do away with Windows and Quicken H&B is the only reason I still run Windows on my Mac.
Macintosh computers are being purchased at a greater quantity than ever before. Please consider creating Quicken Home and Business for Mac.
I, for one, would greatly appreciate it. Skip, if you read more of this thread, you'll see it's not at all that Quicken is 'only now discovering many people use the Mac.' Of course, they have sales and registration stats, so they know exactly the breakdown among Quicken users. The real issue is that they have been re-creating Quicken Mac from the ground-up, after having to abandon 2+ decades of code development in order to develop a program for the modern macOS. And being a complex program, it's been a long, slow process.
That's why Quicken Mac lags behind Quicken Windows in functionality. In order to create a Home and Business version for the Mac, the developers first have to complete the development of the base Quicken Mac product to be close to the Windows version before they can build the additional Home & Business features. Then they have to estimate how many people-days of development it would take, and whether the sales would make that development effort pay off. Clearly, there are some users who would welcome a Mac Home & Business version, but the question they have to answer is if the market is large enough.
Quicken-for-mac Historiers
(And keep in mind that people switching from Quicken Windows is just shuffling their revenue, not expanding it.). You just agreed with your own comment from 3 weeks ago; glad you still agree with yourself!;) That said, I don't know what you're basing your guesswork on. Intuit, the former parent of Quicken, decided to focus on online programs - Mint and Quickbooks - and spun off Quicken because it was a desktop program that didn't fit their focus on online products.
The ownership and management of the now-independent Quicken company may in the future develop some online services, but 100% of the company's revenue comes from the sale of their desktop programs, and they know that many of their users want their data to remain in their desktops, not online. It seems highly unlikely they will move away from the current Quicken products anytime soon. Are you sure about that? That would make it far more a SaaS.
See the implications of the sbuscription-based model they rolled out for QW2017 for Canada and are planning for all other versions. A summary of all the issues discussed has been captured here: Another issue added to this list includes: being forced to upgrade your OS or hardware. See more details here: If you have a concern about this, you can add your VOTE at top of the page of the link provided. Your VOTE matters! (If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click 'Like', so others will know, thanks.). This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled.
I have been a Quicken user since the DOS days and it has been perfect for me. However, ten years ago I saw the light and switched to using Mac computers. I tried in vain using Quicken for Mac and it did not have the same functionality as Quicken for Home & Business. I tried using a virtual Windows on Mac but the keystrokes are not the same. Bottom line - please expand the line to include higher functioning Quicken products for those of us who want to be free from Windows so I can finally rid my desktop of the last remaining PC, keyboard and mouse that clutter it solely because I have become so dependent upon Quicken for Home & Business.
Consider these free alternatives, in the meantime. Since you need to keep your PC & Mac, you could also run Quicken on the PC and use remote access software (several free options, e.g. NoMachine and Teamviewer) to access Quicken on one computer from the other, or even mobile devices (see this great article for complete review of many options (most are free): ).
Though this article was written primarily with Macs in mind, there are many solutions offered that work for Windows too. The one trade-off is that the host computer cannot really be used for anything else while using Quicken with these remote solutions. (If you find this reply helpful, please be sure to click 'Like', so others will know, thanks.). I too had been an original windows quicken user - I switched to a mac to run my business 8 years ago after my last dell computer bit the dust.
I was VERY disappointed that there was no home and business for my mac and and still disappointed in that - I am starting up my business again and would need to have a business product for my income/expenses. Since it appears that Quicken will not be coming out with a home and business I will have to look for another option. Does anyone here know of alternatives?
To all those who are asking for a Mac version of Home & Business, understand that the absence of such a product does not mean the management of Quicken doesn't understand there are people who would like it. There has.never. been a Mac Home & Business version, although there are likely more home Mac users now than ever before. There are really two issues. First, they haven't yet gotten the existing Quicken for Mac product to be on a par with the legacy Quicken 2007 for Mac or with Quicken for Windows. They started from scratch to build a new generation Quicken for Mac a few years ago, but the programming team is very small - resulting in them making progress, but fairly slow progress.
It will likely take another year or two just to get Quicken Mac to the level of Quicken Deluxe for Windows. After that work is done, the next question is whether they devote resources - programmers and time - to building a Home & Business version for Mac. There's no doubt there's demand for such a product, but the question is whether there's.enough. demand to justify the thousands of hours it would take to create, test, bring to market and support. There are, at the time I'm writing this, 23 votes for this idea at the top of the page. Obviously, that's not a useful sample of people who would buy Quicken H&B for Mac; it just means that comments posted here don't give the management team any real help in deciding how large the market is for such a product.
They do know how many people buy the Windows version of H&B, and they need to forecast how many Mac copies they could sell. The number has to be big enough to justify the development, maintenance and support costs.
In any case, I would not expect to see a Home & Business edition of Quicken for Mac anytime in the next year, and probably not for longer than that, even if they do decide to create one. I've given up hope on the Home and Business version for Mac. If they wanted to do it, they would have already done it. As it stands now, people are still resorting to a virtual machine of sorts to run the windows version, equating to Quicken still seeing the revenues without the overhead of creating the Mac version. There are many, many people in the world with the skills and knowledge to create the Mac version of H & B. Thus, they could contract with them to do it. That's why I don't think it will ever happen.
Meanwhile, I might have to resort to another solution - IF one ever comes along. Lisa, If you read my post above, you'll see why I don't think you're correct about Home & Business for Mac. You say 'If they wanted to do it, they would have already done it' and 'There are many, many people in the world with the skills and knowledge to create the Mac version of H & B.' But I think you're focused on the wrong issue: it's not a matter of not being able to find programmers to do the work, it's the economics to fund the work.
Look, they've been working for the past 4+ years just to build a new generation of Quicken for Mac. If they had the resources (e.g. More revenue = more funds = more programmers), they would have been further along faster. I'm convinced that there's no lack of desire on the part of the Mac team at Quicken, it's that they don't sell enough to throw more people at it. Building from scratch all the features developed over the past 3 decades of Quicken Windows and Mac takes time, and if there was lots of money to throw at it, they could have rooms of programmers developing code much more quickly, or as you suggest, they could hire out contract programmers. But there clearly aren't enough people buying Quicken Mac for them to afford to do that. So they've got a small team of programmers working away, making steady progress to create a new Quicken for Mac that, update by update, increasingly fills the many needs of longtime users.
At the pace they've been on, factoring in that the president of the company has said they've been adding programmers, but also factoring in that they must devote a chunk of time this year to re-write lots of code because of Quicken's separation from Intuit (whose back-end servers still provide a lot of the downloading functionality), my guess is that it will take another year to two to do the development work required to check off many of the requested features longtime users are still waiting for. Further up in this thread, the product manager of Quicken for Mac said that exactly: 'We still have quite a bit of functionality to add to Quicken for Mac just to get it even close to Quicken Windows.' Then turning to the possibility of a Home & Business version for Mac, he added: '.so the reality is it may be some time before we get there, but I would love to find out how many people are interested in this.'
So he's clearly saying that they haven't ruled out creating a Home & Business version for Mac, but they're not yet far enough along in developing the core Quicken for Mac to consider it yet. So, again guessing, it might be another year or more until they even decide whether to devote the resources to building Home & Business for Mac, and if they decide to do it, maybe another year until they have a first version to sell. Bottom line:.if. Notebook: plenty of talent returns for mac 2016.
they decide to do a Mac version of Home & Business, it will probably be at least 2 or 3 years, maybe more, until it's available. I add my voice to hoping for a Mac version of Quicken Home and Business.
Thank you to Lisa for adding some depth of perspective. However, you say Intuit can't be certain of the demand. Seems to me there would be many ways of discerning the level of potential demand. Suggestion: Make it a condition of sale for every Quicken program - and every update - (for direct sales and distributors) - that the buyer answer 2 questions: 1.) Are you intending to use this Quicken version for a Mac, through a virtual Windows application?
2.) If it were available in a Mac version, for use without the need of virtual Windows: How likely would you be to switch to the Mac version if the quality/functionality of the program were the same? Absolutely! Very Likely Maybe Next Year Not Sure Probably Not Definitely Not Seems to me you'd get plenty of data - to take to your Directors - with that approach.
No but it does bring in justification to possibly shift development money from the Windows side to the Mac side, since the Windows version is a quite mature product, so is more in maintenance mode. This may slow down some development on the Windows side but enable growth on the Mac side.
But it may show that the amount of resources being applied to the Windows version is disproportionate to the demand. Also, that survey would miss identifying new H&B users on the Mac side.either new to Quicken or old Quicken for Mac users looking to upgrade.
So that would need to be captured too as potential new revenue. @Parker Crew: yes, this thread is a sounding board, but you're incorrect to assume no on is looking at it. I know this is a long thread, but if you take a sec to scroll all the way to the top, or just click, you will see the first reply in this thread is from product manager Marcus, who explicitly asked users to post here if they are interested in Quicken Home & Business for the Mac. There has never been a Mac version of H&B before, and Marcus makes clear that they have more work to do on the core Quicken Mac product before they can even consider creating a H&B version - but the purpose of this thread is exactly to be a sounding board for Quicken management on this issue. Marcus isn't going to respond to ever vote or plea for such a program, but since he asked people to express their interest here, he presumably is looking at the responses from time to time, or when they periodically review their long-term product development roadmap. @Rafael: that's not a bad idea, but it would be something completely new for Quicken to develop. Most of us assume that if they do a Home & Business version for Mac, it would be similar to the Windows version - an extension of the existing core Quicken product.
Creating an online service would require starting program development from scratch, and I don't think they're likely to do that. Also, while you would be happy with an online service, there are many Quicken users who want their data stored locally and not in the cloud. Rick0, sorry, but that just doesn't make sense. They're a business, in business to money, right? So they certainly care about retaining customers and getting money from those customers. There are two factors that come into play here: (1) Are there.enough.
customers who would buy the product to generate enough revenue to cover the costs of development plus a profit? And if the answer to that is yes, then (2) How much work/time would it take to develop the product? And those two questions are interrelated. If the projected profits are high enough, they could hire more developers to try to cut the development time; conversely, if the projected profits are slim, they may need to take a slow path with a smaller development team in order to stay profitable.
But none of those business decisions translates to them not caring about their loyal customers.