No more Money for Microsoft

Encarta, Digital Image Suite, Windows OneCare... now another Microsoft program has been sent off to the knackery.

Microsoft Money, the long-running personal finance package launched in 1991 during the earliest days of the home PC revolution, has reached its use-by date.

Continually out-sold by competitors such as Quicken (which Microsoft tried to buy in the mid-90s, only to be blocked by the US Government due to understandable concerns over a monopoly), and more recently outpaced by online services, Money was already discontinued as a boxed retail product last year and sidelined into being given away as part of the free Office Accounting Express 2009 bundle.

Now Microsoft has officially axed the program. “With banks, brokerage firms and Web sites now providing a range of options for managing personal finances, the consumer need for Microsoft Money has changed” says Adam Sohn, director of Microsoft's Online Business Services unit. “It’s a mix of what's going on in the market, what makes sense for long-term for us and a little bit on consumer behaviour.”

Money enjoyed only limited success in Australia, and was never updated to support local functions such as GST and BAS statement management – something which was often required by customers running a limited home-based business, such as freelance work and selling products at weekend community markets.

Microsoft also ceased updating the International English edition, which was sold into Australia and other countries outside North America, in 2005.

Microsoft deep-sixed its Encarta DVD encyclopedia in March this year, no doubt impacted by the success of the freely available Wikipedia, while the core of Digital Image Suite founds its way into Windows Vista and companion Windows Live online services.

Windows OneCare was replaced by Microsoft Security Essentials, which is a pared-back version of OneCare with a primary focus on detecting and defending against malware such as viruses, spyware, worms, rootkits and trojans.

Microsoft Security Essentials is currently in a public beta test phase and will be released as a free download later this year, possibly alongside the October 22nd launch of Windows 7.