Book #21: Leading Geeks

The twenty-first book I read since May 2008 is:

Leading Geeks by Paul Glen

I actually saw Glen speak a few years ago, and was promised a copy of his book at the time. I never got that copy, and turns out I didn't miss much. The book is decent, but I didn't learn anything in it that he didn't cover in his presentation.

My advice; get it at the library and read about the first one-third. The rest is rehash of the initial thesis, which is that geeks are different from the rest of us and need totally new thinking by their managers. Not a ground-breaking thought, but Glen starts out doing a good job explaining why the old models don't work and then peters out as he reproves the same thing over and over.

- Scott

Intuit Screws Macintosh Users

My bank just notified me that Intuit is discontinuing support for Quicken 2006 at the end of April. Normally that would be no problem, they regularly retire products about three years after they come out. I would normally just buy the latest version and be on my way.

But the timing of this decision is curious. They haven't released a new version for the Macintosh in almost two years, and they have a new Macintosh version coming out this summer. Note that the new version won't be out in time to allow Macintosh users to upgrade directly from Quicken 2006 to the 2009 version -- unless they want to go without a lot of Quicken functionality while they wait.

So to continue using the full feature set of Quicken, I have to shell out $50 for two year-old Quicken 2007, support for which would likely be cut off next year, at which point I'd have to pay to upgrade to Quicken 2009 (or whatever they are calling it now).

I never thought I'd be saying this about Intuit, but that is pretty Microsoft-like treatment of their Macintosh users.  I really enjoy their products and have always thought of them as a company that was more sensitive to consumer needs than most.  That is probably why they'd done so well over the years.

But I think they should reconsider their schedule and support Quicken 2006 until they release a stable version of the 2009 software for Macintosh users.  If they get the new version out the door in July or August, it's only another three months.

Surely they can support their Macintosh users that much longer. We've supported them for over a decade.

Just my two cents... in an effort to save $50 ;)

- Scott