Apple Accounting Software?

[Foxer]

Re: I don't see this happening

Originally posted by nuckinfutz
Intuit has a member on Apples Board(Charles Campbell I believe)

and I just don't see Apple developing something that would compete with Intuit.

I'd like to see it but I just don't believe it would happen.

Alright then... what can be done if a director is hindering Apple's product development.

Business Law I. In his capacity as a member of Apple's Board, Campbell (and all the others) must act in the best interests of Apple. To be honest, boards of directors have VERY little to do with operations (by law), and chiefly serve to protect the shareholders' interests by overseing the officers (the only people who can, by law, act for a company).

If an officer acts in manner contrary to the best interests of the company, or fails to act, then the Board is supposed to handle it - as the only body that can remove an officer. If the Board fails to act, shareholders can file suit on behalf of the company (called a derivative suit, a very strange cat on which I wrote a very boring paper) to compel the board to act. If you want to remove a director, something only the shareholders can do, a special meeting can be called to act on the motion after various hurdles are jumped.

So in short, if Apple passes up an opportunity they are aware of and it can be shown that this was because of a Diretor's private position, the board or a lawsuit can comple action. If the DIrector himself is exerting impoper influence (or you just don't like the way he looks), he can be removed by the shareholders.

Now what was the question again?

 

[Centris 650]

This was mentioned some weeks/months ago that Apple was looking to move to some accounting areas. Does anyone remember where? MacDailyNews? MacCentral? Anyone remember seeing it?

Anyhoo...
My wife is a CPA who is trained and certified with QuickBooks Pro for Windows. She has a bunch of clients that she has to set up to use QBs so she can use that info during tax season. She had planned to move to a Mac with the new QB for Mac was released. However, as you may or may not know, Quickbooks for Mac is lacking. With no way to transfer files from her mac to her clients pc it's really a waste of hd space! Intuit has really dropped the ball on the mac side and my wife and I are looking forward to seeing what Apple has in mind.

 

[Sonofhaig]

WHAT??

Originally posted by noel4r
please let this be true. i use quicken that came with OS X and i find it very clumsy and not user-friendly.

I totally disagree. I think Quicken is fine program. Not to mention very easy.

 

[G4scott]

Let Apple do it. It will put out some competition for quicken, and if Quiken doesn't do anything about it, too bad, we'll have a better app. But quicken might start to upgrade their program and make it better. Either way, we win.

This would also really help me in college...

 

[network23]

Having an Intuit person on Apple's board doesn't mean a thing.

I firmly believe that he is there so that Steve can beat up on him whenever Intuit threatens to stop development of Quicken. Those two black eyes a few months back resulted in Quickbooks coming back to the Mac.

I also believe that Intuit would be flipping cartwheels if they didn't have to develop Mac versions of their products. Apple knows they need home acct software to compete. Therefore, Apple creates its own version that works, and works well, and offers some features/shortcuts that no one's thought of before. Intuit drops Quicken for Mac. Everyone is happy.

 

[bignumbers]

Quicken is an icon

Intuit killed Mac Quicken once before. I'm sure they'll kill it again in an instant if Apple wrote their own competing app. The problem is everyone knows Quicken. If there's no Quicken, it will harm consumer Mac sales. Whether Apple's is better than Quicken is irrelevant in terms of sales. It would have to be so damned fantastic, and there's no chance Apple would put that much development into it.

There DOES need to be more competition on the business accounting front. Mac Quickbooks 5 is garbage. MYOB is ok for some people, but I just hate the interface and need to close out each year.

 

[Kid Red]

We'll see, I mean has spymac been right yet in the year and half they've been around? And yet for some reason people still quote on the front page of their site. 😕

 

[eric_n_dfw]

Re: WHAT??

Originally posted by Sonofhaig
I totally disagree. I think Quicken is fine program. Not to mention very easy.

You must be using the Windows version then.

 

[QuiteSure]

Maybe a Timeslips Replacement for OSX?

This is way out in left field, but maybe Apple is sensitive to the problems that its attorneys and other timekeeping professionals are having since Sage has announced that timeslips will not be ported to OSX. time billing professionals need a networkable, OSX friendly, non-filemaker based billing module, which may work great with a new Apple accounting product.

I know, I know, way wishful thinking, but isn't that what we're all here for?

PS, i don't have any problems with Quicken either ...

 

[juancarloz]

Apple should buy Word Perfect

Apple should buy Word Perfect why are they playing with BeOS or Apple works

 

[backdraft]

"Other rumored components of the upcoming package include spreadsheet and database applications. "

Anyone think that the database application is MySQL plus an Apple GUI, just like Safari is KHTML plus an Apple GUI. It would make sense since MySQL is gaining popularity as an alternative to M$ SQL Server and Oracle.

Thoughts?

Great ideas for OS X: http://www.geocities.com/juan_m007

 

[backdraft]

Originally posted by Yarddog
I seem to remember that Intuit has been trying to drop Quicken for 3 or 4 years now. My understanding is that Apple, in order to get them to keep developing it, put some of its own programmers at Intuit to defray some of the costs of Quicken Mac development. If this is really true, Apple might just be trying to bring quicken mac development in house. I guess they would have to call it something else, but it might still be quicken with a brushed metal interface.

I would hope that they get pocket quicken working with it. I use that a lot.

Everything was fine till you mentioned "a brushed metal interface" 😱 , can't stand brushed metal. I wish apple would have an option to turn it off!

 

[dstorey]

Originally posted by backdraft
"Other rumored components of the upcoming package include spreadsheet and database applications. "

Anyone think that the database application is MySQL plus an Apple GUI, just like Safari is KHTML plus an Apple GUI. It would make sense since MySQL is gaining popularity as an alternative to M$ SQL Server and Oracle.

Thoughts?

Great ideas for OS X: http://www.geocities.com/juan_m007

I've had that thought for a while, befor eeven safari was released, it would be a great idea and much better than Access in Office. However I think PostreSQL would be better, as its more feature packed as an offline db while MySQL is better as a fast online db, and lacks some features like foreign keys etc. I think maybe MySQL has some licencing issues if its used for comercial use but not sure. Also another thing is that don't Apple own a database already in filemaker so maybe they wouldn't produce a rival to it, but who knows

A thing about this rumor is that they say package appleworks and keynote...well this is unlikely...keynote is more a proffesional level rival to powerpoint while appleworks is only a consumer rival to ms works and already includes a presintation app. It would be kinda dumb to include two presintation apps, not to mention confusing for users.

 

[Daaavek]

...but what will it be called?

Woo-hoo! i$pend!

 

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by backdraft
"Other rumored components of the upcoming package include spreadsheet and database applications. "

Anyone think that the database application is MySQL plus an Apple GUI, just like Safari is KHTML plus an Apple GUI. It would make sense since MySQL is gaining popularity as an alternative to M$ SQL Server and Oracle.

Thoughts?

Great ideas for OS X: http://www.geocities.com/juan_m007

Well, I'm leaning more towards FileMaker myself ... Yes, MySQL is a good alternative to SQLServer/Oracle, but that's not exactly the MS Access crowd either. Access is a local, simple database more akin to FileMaker than Oracle et al. While you can, technically, do everything (and more) that you can in Access with Oracle, Access is definitely simpler and more (l)user-oriented.

On the other hand, maybe Apple can put a simple interface on the complexity of MySQL (or PostgreSQL) ...

Politically, it's probably not a good thing for Apple to tick off Oracle by helping out MySQL ... like it or not, XServe sales will climb when Oracle can be run reliably on the beasts, and will plummet if Oracle pulls OS X support from their next release ... I think it's wise to keep the list of software giants we're thumbing our noses at to one at a time ...

 

[BaghdadBob]

Intuit sucks, and I like brushed metal...how about Onyx?

I can't speak personally for Quicken or Quickbooks, but I can speak on their tax software, about which they were ***holes when we had a problem, and they imbedded a company in their software which served to rip us off for $40 bucks off our tax return.

My dad used QuickBooks, and loved it, for a long time and was upset when they killed it. When they came out with their upgrade he called it "insulting." Five years or so and same crap.

Bottom line: if Apple is going to alienate Intuit I'm all for it, but they had better give us a reasonably powerful tool for the average Joe, and hopefully a true replacement to QuickBooks for more account-oriented individuals...they already have some of the tools built into the OS for it.

 

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by dstorey
A thing about this rumor is that they say package appleworks and keynote...well this is unlikely...keynote is more a proffesional level rival to powerpoint while appleworks is only a consumer rival to ms works and already includes a presintation app. It would be kinda dumb to include two presintation apps, not to mention confusing for users.

Can't Apple just dump the old presentation app from Works and replace it with Keynote (or Keynote Lite)? Not having used the AppleWorks presentation app, I can't say if it has any features Keynote does not, but you'd think that Keynote would be a fairly easy replacement there.

I mean, it's not like this hasn't been done before at that other company with a product called "Works" ...

 

[dstorey]

Originally posted by jettredmont
Can't Apple just dump the old presentation app from Works and replace it with Keynote (or Keynote Lite)? Not having used the AppleWorks presentation app, I can't say if it has any features Keynote does not, but you'd think that Keynote would be a fairly easy replacement there.

I mean, it's not like this hasn't been done before at that other company with a product called "Works" ...

yeah but M$ are just.... well ms. Plus the whole office and works were produced when ms deceided to just add word to works. I think it would be strange to produce only one professional app (and a pres app at that) then stick to the lower quality intergrated components for the other more important parts...it would seem like a job quater done...Apple needs a good quality Word rival...thats the big fish.

 

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by dstorey
yeah but M$ are just.... well ms. Plus the whole office and works were produced when ms deceided to just add word to works. I think it would be strange to produce only one professional app (and a pres app at that) then stick to the lower quality intergrated components for the other more important parts...it would seem like a job quater done...Apple needs a good quality Word rival...thats the big fish.

Yes, Word/Works isn't exactly a balanced situation ... more like a cheap way to get MS Word and Money and maybe Streets&Trips ...

That having been said, I'd much rather buy an MS Works with Word in it (and, thanks to stupid OEM deals I've bought Works more than a few times because it is often cheaper to just "buy" Works than to get a computer without it!) than that crappy integrated "Works Editor" that they used to ship, and I suspect I'd be more likely to buy AppleWorks if it had Keynote than if it had just an unrelated (and incompatible) presentation knock-off ... One genuine, non-castrated application in the bunch to me is more appealling than none ...

Of course, I'd strongly prefer a full-fledged "Office" style suite with all full-purpose apps. if those rumors are true I'll be quite happy ... although I am also hoping that OpenOffice gets thrown in the mix there too ... too much good work on that project for Apple to just reinvent the wheel again ...

 

[IJ Reilly]

If Apple does put out a financial application to "compete" with either Quicken or QuickBooks (as if such a thing was possible), think in terms of the iLife model. It will probably be able to debit directly from your digicam, or some such thing.

Bill Campbell -- I vote my shares against him whenever I remember to open my annual report. What a twerp.

As for the brushed metal interface theme, I don't mind it too much, but I'm still holding out for formica. Yellow formica with a boomerang pattern. That would be really cool.

 

[xjohn]

I would love it if Apple came out with a quality financial application.

If they do so, I really hope they give it international support, as another poster said, with support for multiple currencies and the like. This is a huge missing feature of Quicken for the mac.

My fear is that they will consider this a 'power user' feature and not include it. This would be a mistake. We live in an international world, and more and more people travel or live abroad and need to deal with multiple currencies.

What would be great is if Apple could find a user-friendly way to implement multiple currency support.

 

[cubist]

Originally posted by IJ Reilly
As for the brushed metal interface theme, I don't mind it too much, but I'm still holding out for formica. Yellow formica with a boomerang pattern. That would be really cool.

I want walnut woodgrain. But other times I like frosted glass (translucent).

 

[Windowlicker]

I'd much rather buy an MS Works with Word in it[/B]

I have to disgree here.. I don't really hate Word, but I think it could be much easier to use. for example the settings should all be in the preferences (I tried finding the "DON'T PLAY THE DAMN SOUNDS" and the "DON'T YOU CORRECT ME EVEN IF YOU THINK I'M SPELLING IT ALL WRONG" buttons but they weren't in the prefs).. the gui is a bit cryptic when you have to do something more than just a plain text, I think.

And apple is known for their ease of use apps.. I'd definitely get the Apple product if there was one for X (and I'm sure there'll be).

 

[WorkHorse]

Open Source as a Source for the Finance App

Apple could be working on a really nice Aquafied GUI front end to GNUCash, or perhaps GnoFin.

Mmmm, GNUCash... that'd rock the casbah. http://www.gnucash.org

 

[macguymike]

I agree...

Apple could become very insular and inbreed flaws if it reaches too far with its "integrated" software/hardware.

Originally posted by Freg3000
This sounds like a good idea. It sort of rounds out a future Apple office suite. I just hope Apple doesn't alienate the companies that actually [try to] support their platform.