Andy Kramek

Andy,

You're absolutely right about Intuit. I used Quickbooks several years ago and was appalled by their registration tactics. I abandonded it soon afterwards and have never used another Intuit product since.

<< I wish we'd known that a little sooner   AK >>

You might want to look at MS Small Business Accounting.

(I know, not the point of your entry.)

BOb

I have used Quickbooks for the last 7 years and have only purchased two licenses. I would have only purchased one license, but I had to leave my old license with a former company. I have never upgraded as the product works fine the way it is now. It does not excuse their behavior, but I can understand their position. How can they guarantee Tightline will not turn around and use the product for your accounting?

I guess I would not abandon a good product over a little $200, especially when it is built into the project costs.
<Rick: Like I said, cost is not the issue here! The fact is that the client has already bought more licenses than they need - precisely to account for the developement work requirement. The issue is that we need this procuct on a separate physical machine that is NOT the production server! AK>

What are you going to move towards, Microsoft's Small Business Accounting? One of my clients has used Quickbooks and is hitting the upper limits of the file size. Microsoft swears it can import these "small files" and it dies during the import wizard. If Microsoft was really trying to eat Intuit's lunch they better bring a better import wizard to the table.

<That I don't know about. When we researched this issue, QuickBooks looked to be the best product for the job - but their inflexibility over licensing and upgrades makes them look much less attractive now. AK>

It's funny that Andy just blogged about an unreasonable software manufacturer - I have just had to deal...

Or you could pay $295 to $1195 per year to join the Intuit Developer Network!

<< And this is better, how? My issue is that my client has already purchased all the required licenses - including an extra one for us to use. We just can't use it on a different box without paying an additional fee. That is b******t!  AK>>

 

Andy, why don't you install an evaluation version of 30 days for your tests?, You will not violating any law.

<<But we had already bought, and paid for, a full license for our development use! We just can't use it. Besides it is unlikely this project will be finished within 30 days anyway - this is WHY we bought an additional license to begin with...AK>>

Couldn't you just install it, activate it and when you're done, install it on the client's machine and activate it again with the "replacement computer" excuse? With the way people get new computers, this usually isn't an issue. No saying you have to outright lie, just say that it was removed from the old computer and you're going to use it on a new one.

<<But we had already bought, and paid for, a full license for our development use! As I said, we try to be honest and to avoid doing things like this - all it does is cost us, and our clients, money...AK>>

Intuit isn't much different from Microsoft. You can purchase an MSDN subscription from MS to get copies of the software to develop with. Intuit lets you join their development network, (for a fee), and gives you a copy of every conceivable version of QB.
This doesn't take away the frustration though, does it? <g>

<<No, nor have I any interest in becoming an Intuit Developer, or using any other version of their software. All we wanted to do was to use the license we originally paid for on a machine that is not a production server (and never will be) but is not at the client's site. That is all!...AK>>

Andy, I have definitely felt this same frustration.  As integration is our specialty we are often asked to "tie in" to different commercial packages.  Even if the software manufacturer is co-operative it can still be a royal pain in tha a** to get everything set up and kept up to date in a development environment.  My experience has been better with software sold through reseller channels, such as Accpac, Syspro, etc.  Usually the reseller will do whatever they can to get around licensing issues if they are looking out for their clients' best interest - unless, however, you are directly competing with them.  But still, the sheer size of the installs and test data, plus all the arcane registration procedures (each module has a 50 character unlock key, for instance) can make it very frustrating to say the least.  Very developer unfriendly, as you point out, for software that is supposed to be integrated with.  In most cases, the VARs and resellers can't or don't want to be programmers, so that can leave the client in a pickle to say the least, if the software can't be set up in a dev or test environment without a lot of hurdles.  Great blog post!

Andy,

Your blog came at an opportune time.  I have just been asked to look at an accounting system that can work with our VFP app.  

I wonder if the marketing people at Intuit have ever heard the term "Influence Leaders?"

Thanks for the warning.

Ken

OK...I see your point, but how about the other side of the story. Too many people steal software. They almost feel that they have a right not to pay for anything at all, even if they run their business on it. As a software developer I will honestly tell you that I am doing this to be paid. I am not going to crunch code and write an application that someone can use to make themselves money without being compensated.
Yet for some reason, a large percentage of computer users feel it’s OK to not pay for or flat out pirate software. That is stealing. Yet those very same people will in turn use this software to make money for themselves without any thought what-so-ever.

Now to your point of the “greedy software manufacturers”. Since so many people steal software, developers have to spend a lot of time and effort into making registration and activation programs to tighten the security and make pirating much more difficult. Once that is done, situations like yours come to light. Back in the “oldern days” like 1999 or something, you would have been given some sort of master unlock code to enter which would have allowed you to circumvent the installation checks. But when that was done and considered common practice, these codes would make their way onto the Internet and others would then use them to steal copies of the software.

Yes, I do feel for you, but this is just something that computer users have brought on themselves. Software companies are businesses, and programmers get paid. If the businesses don’t make money and the programmers don’t get paid, you will have no software.

How would you feel if you worked hard to do a task for people and were never paid for it? Your complaint is even without merit. So what, buy the copy of the software for your own testing or even use it for your business, while passing the cost for it through to your customer and blame the software company for being “greedy”.

It's still a lot cheaper than Sage MAS 90 for small business accounting.

I gave Intuit the hairy eyeball ever since they put that whacky copy protection scheme on TurboTax. Sure, it's gone now.  But they left an everelasting bad impression on me with that fiasco and, evidently, they still don't get it.

Screw them.

I've had similar issues with Intuit and others over the years (ACT! comes immediately to mind) and I've done essentially what you've done.  If the vendor is developer 'unfriendly' I simply remove them from my list of supported vendors.

If someone else wants to write the integration piece to their product and suffer the problems and setbacks... it's all theirs