The news of Intuit’s intention to acquire the personal finance service Mint has been known for some time but the deal was made official Sunday night. TechCrunch broke the news of the acquisition naming unknown sources. Intuit acquired Mint for a total of $170 million.

Intuit CEO Brad Smith said “This move will enhance Intuit’s position as a leading provider of consumer SaaS offerings that connect customers across desktop, online and mobile.”

Mint was started two years ago and received a warm reception. It was a CNET webware winner for 2008 as well as 2009. It also was the winner of TechCrunch 50 in 2007. The final phases of the acquisition are set to close in fourth quarter. After that Mint will become part of Intuit’s consumer group including Quicken and TurboTax.

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Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it would be tossing yet another product into its growing bin of underperforming software. Like Encarta, Flight Simulator, and Windows Live OneCare before it, Microsoft Money has been scrapped. And just as Wikipedia defeated Microsoft’s Encarta reference software, Money could not survive against Intuit’s financial software package, Quicken. On the Money website, the company states, “With banks, brokerage firms and Web sites now providing a range of options for managing personal finances, the consumer need for Microsoft Money Plus has changed.”

In August 2008, Microsoft ended updates to Money and pulled the software from retail shelves. By October of that year, the company began scaling back on the development on at least 13 products, which can be found here.

Microsoft Money will be available for purchase until June 30, 2009. Online services will be available until January 31, 2011. Microsoft assures the product will continue to work after that point, but users will no longer have access to automated data feeds from banks, credit card companies, and other financial service providers.

For those who currently own, or plan to purchase the software before the end of June, be sure to activate the program before January 31, 2011. And, for users who are concerned about exporting information from Money to another financial management application (Quicken, anyone?), Microsoft provides a support document on its corporate website, available here: Exporting Account Information.

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Intuit, the software developer of TurboTax and QuickBooks, has become yet another Silicon Valley company forced to trim staff amid the recession. In recent days, the company cut 4% of its 8,200-strong workforce in an effort to manage costs. Nearly half of the 300 employees given 60-day notifications came from Intuit’s Small Business Division, which is responsible for its QuickBooks accounting software.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for the company tried to assure that the cuts Intuit will make in its workforce will not have a material impact on its results. For Intuit, she stated that, “We manage our resources on an ongoing basis; these changes support our long-term growth strategy.” The company also insists that the layoffs are in no way related to its plans to buy PayCycle, the online payroll service, for $170 million.

Intuit’s announcement follows in the wake of layoffs by Microsoft, Google, Applied Materials, and more recently, Hewlett-Packard.

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