The captain of the Intuit boat must be on crack, why in the world are they shutting it down with lots of customers online.. why not sell the business to someone else? Are investors aware? I think qql must be a small part of their business considering that the shutdown hasn't even come up on the newswire. Anyone care to short INTU in protest? it looks like the daily is forming a double top..
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/020515/150384_2.html MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 15, 2002--Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq:INTU - News) today announced the results for its third quarter of fiscal 2002, which ended April 30, 2002. "Intuit delivered another outstanding quarter," said Steve Bennett, Intuit's president and chief executive officer. "Once again, Intuit continued to execute our strategy to penetrate under-served markets and drive profitability from volume leverage and operational rigor."
"The captain of the Intuit boat must be on crack, why in the world are they shutting it down with lots of customers online.. why not sell the business to someone else? Are investors aware"? From Dec. 1999 Intuit Press Release- announcing QQL http://www.intuit.com/company/press_releases/1999/12-06b.html "Through our acquisition of Hutchison and the addition of Quicken Quotes Live to Quicken.com, we have solidified our leadership position in e-finance by broadening the services we offer e-investors to help them reach both long- and short-term investment goals," said Mark Goines, senior vice president, Intuit. "The new service brings a simply designed, easy to use graphic presentation to the desktop, providing all investors with the tools that professional traders rely on to manage their portfolios." ---------------- More great corporate minds - ie) acquire businesses in 1999 -2000 and then close them down or write them off within a few years these guys must have graduated from the John Roth -Nortel School of Bizness
Maybe they simply weren't actually making a profit on QQL (which might account for why they didn't try to sell it) or maybe they weren't getting as high a return on their investment as they'd anticipated. A presumed "lots of users" doesn't necessarily translate into "lots of bucks" - it costs a lot to operate a datafeed service properly. Maybe Quicken management decided they weren't getting enough return to continue to do something that's really not within their core competency (they are primarily a software company). One new popular piece of software would probably make them more money than they were making from QQL - so if they indeed weren't reaping huge returns, then focusing resources on where you can make the most return makes sense.
Hi I'd be willing to bet that all the other real time data providers got together and paid QQL to cease operations. Their product was to good and cheap to contend with. QQL got their feed from S&P Comstock who charged more than 3 times more for their product. Its just so unamerican these days to offer a good and reliable product at a bargain barrel price!! Sterling
============================================= They didn't ever suggest that they had to raise the fees they charge to sustain an expensive operation. Many of us would be willing to pay a bit more to keep QQL running. At least, I emailed them several times before to make that suggestion for the addition of futures data and other enhancements, but Intuit's development, or the powers that be, just disregarded this option. BTW, I really don't know why Intuit's stock continues to perform, given that their most popular software, Quicken, has been going downhill since the 2000 version--which I am using, and that its market share has been eroded by Microsoft's Money. They are able to come out with innovative products (like QQL and Quicken) but can't seem to carry things through. Management's hubris has a lot to do with it, I suspect. They are simply laying to waste the talents of their software engineers.
"I emailed them several times before to make that suggestion for the addition of futures data and other enhancements." Likewise - I e-mailed them several times regarding enhanements-most notably Fibs. I was put on a list to become a QQL beta-tester. After a period of time had passed - I e-mailed them again about beta-testing - they replied that they did not have any beta's -to test. They never got back to me concerning a roadmap for further development of QQL.
Sterling: Actually QQL gets its data directly from the exchanges, and not through a 3rd party such as S&P Comstock.