Microsoft to close the till on Microsoft Money

Talk about bad timing. The same day Microsoft issues a press release touting the third annual MSN Money "Customer Service Hall of Shame and Hall of Fame" survey results, Microsoft officials are acknowledging the company is poised to kill off completely Microsoft Money, the company's personal finance-management product.

News.com has the skinny on the end of Money the product. From a June 10 blog posting:

"The software maker has been notifying financial institutions and plans to announce the move to customers over the next 24 hours via a posting on its Web site and a notification in the software. Although Microsoft will stop selling the product at the end of June, it plans to support it through January 2011."

Microsoft announced in August 2008 that it would no longer sell Money through retail stores. The company said at that time that plans to release a Money Plus 2009 release were cancelled.

I asked Microsoft for further information on the phase out. Adam Sohn, a Director with Microsoft's Online Business Services unit, said customers will be able to continue to use Microsoft Money until January 31, 2011 -- or "a bit longer if they have bought it recently." Check your End User License Agreement (EULA), which will hav an end date, which, for some customers, could be as late as June, 2011, Sohn said.

After that date, "the software will still work, but all the online services backing it up will be decommissioned -- meaning no automatic flow of account, stock market, tax data, etc.  So people can import that stuff by hand if they want to keep using the product."

MSN Money, also known as MoneyCentral, is a site that provides Web content to help users manage their personal finances.

"This site will continue on -- it will continue to be a resource for customers looking to manage their finances," Sohn said.