Roadmap for Quicken Classic for Mac

Question

I'm a 30-year Quicken user, transitioned to Mac in 2014, now using Quicken Classic for Mac.  Is there any chance at all (pretty please) that this will ever transition to a true bona fide cloud-based full-featured personal accounting app with robust budgeting, investments, and reporting features that is device-agnostic and supports migration of existing data files?  My data file contains 30 years of data that I like to frequently search from, and I do NOT want to start from scratch.  I'm not interested in Simplifi unless you fundamentally rescope it - it's not an accounting app in my view.  I really like Quicken Classic for Mac, but I'm tired of the non-cloud limitations, and I'm disappointed in its limited budgeting features.  (For budgeting I've had to transition to another app, which unfortunately creates extra work.)  I don't want to sacrifice features to move to the cloud.

What is the long term vision for Quicken Classic for Mac?

jacobs · Answer

@Paul Galley  What @Jon said. I don't think there is any plan to make Quicken Classic for Mac or Windows into a cloud-based program. The code for each of them, which represent decades of development and likely millions of lines of code, is deeply tied to their host operating systems.

That's why they developed the entirely cloud-base Simplifi from scratch. It's aimed especially at younger users, who may only use a phone or tablet and not a desktop computer, who specifically want a cloud-based solution. Every financial institution has invested in having cloud-based apps or websites, not desktop software which must be installed and maintained. Cloud is the present and the future. And when you look at the Quicken website, you'll see it focuses almost entirely on Simplifi; you have to dig down to find the "oh, yeah, we also have Quicken Classic, our old original desktop software." We can all clearly see where they think their future lies.

I think the big question is whether they will invest the time and money in building out features in Simplifi, and in building converter tools to import Quicken Mac and Quicken Windows data files to Simplifi and migrate users to the cloud-based product. So far, about 6.5 years into the existence of Quicken Simplifi, the answer to that remains no. And it may be that it will always be no, as Simplifi has different ways of doing things, and trying to add many of the features of the desktop products would make it too muddled a product. Or, it may be that some number of years down the road they will build a converter which at least partially converts old desktop data files, to give users a path forward if they decide to end development and support of the desktop products.

No one from Quicken senior management, even if they saw your question here (which they probably don't), would answer it. They're in a competitive market with other desktop and online personal finance products, and they won't publish their long term vision for their products. (Heck, Quicken's culture is so buttoned up that they won't disclose what minor features or tweaks are forthcoming in an update coming out next week!)

Jon · Answer

Simplifi is their cloud-based solution. IMO you're wasting your time if you're waiting for Quicken Classic to become any more cloud based than it already is - this is the app for people who don't want a cloud-based app. They haven't made any significant improvements to the mobile app in many years and I don't see any reason to expect any in the future.

I imagine that someday there will be budgeting improvements - there are multiple budgeting improvements marked as Planned - but it's anyone's guess when they will arrive & Quicken doesn't announce anything in advance.