I’m feeling a lot happier these days about Quicken, and the company that publishes it, Intuit. I’m running version 2004 now, rather than 2002, and it’s a much more stable program. Those of you who have followed my rants on this blog about Quicken know that my only serious complaint about Quicken has been its stability. It’s much better now.

I wasn’t even planning on upgrading to Quicken; I thought I’d be throwing good money after bad. This is why I was on the lookout for alternatives. But about a month ago I got two letters from Intuit, arriving on the same day. The first one warned that Quicken 2002 was being phased out, and that by May of this year I would no longer be able to use it to download transactions or pay bills. Uh oh! Enclosed was a $20 rebate certificate to be used against the purchase of Quicken 2005.

The second one, from the Quicken Bill Pay department, told me the same news about the expiration of Quicken 2002—but—enclosed, gratis, a CD-ROM containing a copy of Quicken 2004 and requested that I install it and pass it on to anyone else affected by the transition.

Now that seriously impressed me! I installed it immediately and went to download transactions, an operation that usually gives me a mild stomach cramp because I have no idea whether or not it will crash, and not just once, but many times in a row before finally succeeding. I am very pleased to report that Quicken 2004 has not crashed once for me yet, in the month or so that I have been using it.

The funny part about the story, of course, is the first letter from Intuit, offering me a rebate off the purchase of 2005, despite the fact that their Bill Pay department was giving me a copy of 2004 for free. If I view this mixed message generously (and I choose to), Intuit was basically saying, “If you want the fancy fresh new 2005 we’ll cut you a break on it, or, we’ll give you a free copy of yesterday’s news that is nevertheless compliant.”

I would still like to see credible alternatives to Quicken, just to keep Intuit on their toes, but I’m happy to see that despite their almost total market dominance in personal computer finance software, and the fact that I’m a user of a niche operating system, Intuit still values my patronage.