August 02, 2006 Financial Software, Made Simple By Walter S. Mossberg and Katherine Boehret
If you're budget-conscious and highly organized, you're probably already a devotee of Intuit's Quicken and Microsoft's Money, two computer programs that allow fiscal fanatics to digitally organize their finances and assess their spending. But both software makers realize that there are only a limited number of customers for complicated, deep financial software. So, both are moving this year to simplify things for the rest of us who aren't as enamored by ledgers and numbers, but still might like to get a better handle on how we spend our money. This week, we reviewed new versions of these top financial programs that omit or play down their most intimidating features, focusing instead on simple budgeting and online bill payments. We tested Microsoft Corp.'s Microsoft Money Essentials -- a $20 download at www.microsoft.com/money that was released about two weeks ago. This is a new, light version of Money, with a limited feature set. We pitted it against Intuit Inc.'s $30 Quicken 2007 Basic, which became available yesterday. The new Quicken retains the product's full features, but sports a fresh interface that emphasizes budgeting and bill paying for those who don't want to delve further into such things as investment tracking and planning. ... http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/solution-20060802.html Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
