High customer support costs and an angry customer base (check out the user review scores for Quicken and Money) make standalone financial apps like Quicken and Microsoft Money questionable product lines for their makers, and when the online services take hold I will expect their demise. Intuit is also still preparing to release its iPhone app that accesses Quicken Online data, as I wrote in December. It's unclear to me that Intuit's history will translate into market share in this competitive market.

But while Intuit Online is a solid service, the online competitors keep getting better, too.

In a market with free (and very good) competitors, there was just no reason to pay for Quicken Online. When I last covered Quicken Online in December 2007, my biggest complaint was its price. The company is still selling, as completely separate products, software versions of Quicken. Intuit has finally dropped the subscription fee on Quicken Online, its Web-based financial software that competes with Mint, Geezeo, Buxfer, and Wesabe.

Quicken 2014 deluxe download