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To: Scott Crumley who wrote (11818)	4/19/1998 8:03:00 AM
From: Linda Kaplan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213177

Scott, Is this the same Campbell, Bill, who used to work at Apple and was in charge of Claris software? He was a good guy in those days. I agree there's something more behind this. No way could he simply be dropping Quicken on the Mac and be approved for Apple's board without there being something else and the else better be something very good for Apple. I can't say I'm happy to hear that Apple's buying any more software, since they themselves have a history of divestiture and failure with so much of their software. They don't stick it out and do their best with enough of it. But that's certainly the kind of software that most people want to own, and which could be bundled with all Macs, so it could sweeten the Mac if Apple improved it and sold it (or gave it away with the Macs). Thanks for the thought-provoking gossip. Linda

To: Scott Crumley who wrote (11818)	4/19/1998 1:35:00 PM
From: Eric Yang	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 213177

Scott, I don't think that rumor of Intuit selling Quicken to Apple holds much water. Supporting one product on two different platforms while maintaining portability, and consistency can takes a lot of engineering effort...imagine doing that when the two products are being developed at different companies. What if the whole Quicken is sold to Apple? Not likely...What does Apple know about accounting software? It's not within their expertise. As we've all heard, Intuit said that the sales of Quicken has been in decline, while that of MacinTax continues to grow. I think a major contributing factor is the prevalence of software piracy on the Mac platform. This is a tabooed subject that people don't talk much about but it is a serious problem on the Mac. Mac users as a group are pretty savvy users, and unfortunately that makes them a bit better at finding pirated software as well. That is not to say that software piracy isn't also a major problem on the PC side, but due to the much larger user base the problem doesn't "feel" as serious. The smaller market share of the Mac platform amplifies the cost of software piracy to software vendors. Since the upgrade cycle for MacinTax is much shorter, the install bas of pirated copies are essentially wiped out every year. I went out and got a copy of Quicken Deluxe 98 from CompUSA yesterday for $59.99. If I want Intuit to continue to support the Mac platform, I better be prepared to support Intuit as well. Eric

To: Scott Crumley who wrote (11818)	4/19/1998 2:29:00 PM
From: Idomeneus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213177

Scott, The only comment I can make on Intuit's announcement is that their current product release model does not fit the Mac market very well at all. Last year, I think, they switched their Quicken releases to come out once a year (eg, Quicken 97, Quicken 98, etc.). While they can easily develop one new release per year with the volume of Windows machines out there and make money on it, I doubt the more limited Mac volume would allow that once-a-year model to be very profitable. It's not like a personal finance package "needs" to be updated once a year for it to be viable--heck, until recently I've still been using Quicken 4.0 for all my finances!! Worked fine for years! It seems to be (from Intuit's point of view) that their new release scheduling can't support the costs involved for yearly development and marketing in a Mac market that is nowhere near the size of the Windows market. Having said that, I too am in angst about their decision. It would be (to my mind) completely different if they said they would release a Mac version every couple years. We shall see. MacCentral today had an interview with an Intuit spokesperson who said that they had only decided not to release an updated Mac version "this fall", and made some halfhearted comments about possibly coming out with a future version if "the Mac consumer market picks up". I hope they do change their mind, and I hope that Mac market share does pick up. The fact that Apple sold 650,000 machines this quarter (their weakest) compared to (625,000?) the previous (Christmas) quarter bodes well, I think. If they can keep it up, we might actually see numbers in the 800,000s by this next Christmas . . . Paul Arthur