Hi,
That's pretty interesting. I hope DOJ doesn't make them break the browser out of the package. :>
How do like the upgrade otherwise? Is it worth the money? I think I've done about 10 upgrades over the years starting from pre-1.0. And of those times, I could rarely fulfill the "rebate" requirements - I don't know, it must be me. They required the old receipt or a coupon from the old manual or something.
Anyway, usually the upgrade had some cool stuff in it, but it has always retained quirks that go back to day one. I can't detail it, it's just a feeling. I guess people have grown up doing their books the "quicken way" so it comes natural. I also beta-tested Dollars & Sense, One-Write Plus and RealWorld in their seminal days. Quicken was always the best because of its superior user interface (ergo, the origin of the company name Intuit).
Checkfree, now there's another old-timer. They were Compuserve's electronic billing method from a long time back. If you wanted automatic billing of your (exorbitant) Compuserve bills, you HAD to use Checkfree. Compuserve became huge, as did Checkfree. Then they expanded into billpaying of other merchants. But, always, the name of the game with Checkfree was convenient bill payment.
Excite started out slow, but they built up a name for themselves by giving away an NT version of their search engine to all comers. Their early interface was marginal, so they hired a high-design web outfit (whom I've met) to "make-over" the site. What you see today is the result. The improved design vastly expanded the hit rates, thereby setting the stage to exploit that user base.
Convenience, value, good design, superb user interface are what the union of these three players brings to the table. Don't be surprise to see even more surprises and synergy from this triad.
IMHO. |
