Quicken 2012 is not a tax program; Intuit sells one and isn't about to pull the rug out from under its own feet. But it does integrate with Intuit's tax programs, so there is some added value come April 15.

Those two quibbles aside, I was impressed with Quicken 2012. Although we're using more and more free applications that live in the cloud, at times there are advantages to doing it the old fashioned way - with software that's loaded on your own PC.

San Francisco journalist Bill Snyder writes frequently about business and technology. He welcomes your comments and suggestions. Reach him at . Follow Bill Snyder on Twitter . Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter

in CIO's Applications Drilldown.