Software

After reinstalling Windows XP and every other application Quickbooks finally installs and works. After the long battle with Quickbooks I have grown my apperication for web applications and the time it takes to install Unix based solutions.


Windows is fine for simple home applications, expect once you get into more complex applications of the operating systems you constantly require more and more tools to make up for the OS its self.


My guess is, if microsoft provided a way to segment installs of applications a little more then this would be less of a problem.

After reading some of the sec filings on Intuit it is clear that they are depending on new products and features to create future revenue. Though from looking at Quickbooks, they have rewrote the database interface and SDK. These improvements appear to be at the cost of imporved install ablities on Windows XP.


Putting my self in their shoes and if I was an accountant pulling the strings, ith a new release of windows comming out, the investment on extra testing for XP might of seamed unneeded. In the end with the amount of problems that it has caused is not going to be postivite for them on this year. Maybe next year they will increase the budget ? Or maybe they are just getting their customers to beta test the software even though they declare it as stable.

I can only guess that their stock will drop somewhat after losing a bit of market share and 2007 will be a better year due to more offerings.

Quickbooks Pro 2006 has been very Quick at sucking up 6 hours of my time trying to do installs. Repeated errors over AnswerWorks 4.0 , dll files missing, on top of that I seen a number of interesting things.

Quickbooks Pro 2006 is suppose to be a complete rewrite or at lest a large update, though to me that just appears to be a marketing thing. Perhaps it is just the USA version that is a rewrite as Quickbooks Pro 2006 looks like a rehash of the older version. Two things that I noticed,

1. Install scripts referring to 2003 Quickbooks.

2. The large amount of problems with people installing Quickbooks on XP and yet Windows 98,Me,2000 all seam to go much smother then Quickbooks on XP.

This is based on me testing installs on various machines around to see how things work out. Xp is the only one that seams to have some serious issues.
Which is very silly considering XP is about to be replaced, so my guess is that once Vista is up and running XP will be fine, then some where in 2007 to 2008 they will drop windows 98,Me,2000 support so it handles the Xp / Vistia Kernal much better.

My History

After looking at various way of handling my accounting, I decided on using Quickbooks for the 2006 year. Before hand I had used, Simply Accounting for a couple of years and then had a in house solution. Rather then spending the money to have the in house solution upgraded I am looking to have the Custom software integrated with QuickBooks.

Why QuickBooks ?

Both software products have very similar product lines, features and prices. Leaving out those options it was left up to who had the best developer program. Intuit won easly due to the avaliablity of their sdk. I contacted Sage / Simply Accounting a while ago and yet to receive a response. To me, that is a clear indication that my business is unwanted.

Simply Accounting - cloak and dagger

Personaly I do not like cloak and dagger companies when it comes time to integrate with their solutions. In the past when I have tried to work with companies that use this model they attempt to have you contract the integration work out to them or just make it plan difficult to do any thing.

Simply Accounting seams to be more of a Training company then a software development company. If you look at their Simply Accounting 8.0B from 2000 it is all most the same as their current 2006 version. The big improvement was made in their help files.

Intuit - Freedom

Intuit makes the documentation for their sdk open to developers who opt in, this gives the freedom to do what is needed. When a company runs with a model like Intuit does, development of applications usually goes much faster, bug free, smoother and the end result in more Orders.

Never Enter Data Twice! (NED2 ^TM) http://www.developer.intuit.com/QuickBooksSDK/Features/

The NED2 policy is exactly what I am looking for, any company can benifit from avoiding repeating of tasks.

My brother told me of a local Halifax company called Sports Direct, http://www.sportsdirectinc.com After looking at their site I ponder on if they are looking to be bought out by a larger media company.