Intuit Inc.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Intuit, Inc | |
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| Type of Company | Public (NASDAQ: INTU) |
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| Founded | Palo Alto, California (1983) |
| Headquarters | Mountain View, California, USA |
| Key people | Scott Cook, founder Tom Proulx, initial developer Steve Bennett, CEO |
| Industry | Computer software |
| Products | Personal finance, accounting and tax return software |
| Revenue |  $2.038 billion USD (2005) |
| Employees | 7,300 |
| Website | www.intuit.com |
Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ: INTU) is an American software company that develops financial and tax preparation software and related services for small businesses, accountants and individuals. It is incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in Mountain View, California.
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[edit] Profile
The company was founded in 1983 by Scott Cook and Tom Proulx in Palo Alto, California. It is a notable rare example of a successful Microsoft competitor. According to their website, "Intuit's source of success is not as much technological prowess as it is a relentless focus on the customer."
Intuit makes the popular personal finance programs Quicken and TurboTax, (in Canada known as QuickTax), the popular small business accounting program QuickBooks, QuickBooks Point of Sale solution for small retailers, the market leading professional tax solutions ProSeries and Lacerte, and the Web-based corporate workgroup productivity solution QuickBase.
The company maintains a number of foreign sales offices. It has significant R&D activity in Intuit Canada headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta and Intuit India headquartered in Bangalore, India. Foreign product versions are now predominantly produced by third-party localizers or licensees.
[edit] History
Intuit was reportedly conceived when Scott Cook, then an assistant product manager at Procter & Gamble, realized that personal computers would lend themselves as replacement for paper-and-pencil based personal accounting. On his quest to find a programmer he ended up running into Tom Proulx at Stanford. The two started Intuit, which initially operated out of a modest room on University Avenue in Palo Alto. The first version of Quicken was coded in Microsoft's Compiler BASIC for the IBM PC and UCSD Pascal for the Apple II by Tom Proulx and had to contend with a dozen serious competitors. Intuit struggled financially until they found their formula for success, which revolved around direct marketing campaigns, favorable reviews in industry and consumer magazines and word of mouth from satisfied customers. Intuit's focus on usability and customer support in its early years was legendary.
Although by 1988 Quicken became a best-seller in its market, the company wasn't a major success until the advent of Windows 3.0 in early 1990s, when sales of Quicken grew explosively. Roughly around the same time the company engaged John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and diversified its product lineup. In 1993 Intuit went public and used the proceeds to make a key acquisition: the tax-preparation software company Chipsoft based in San Diego. The time after the IPO was marked by rapid growth and culminated by buyout negotiations with Microsoft in 1995, when Intuit's market capitalization reached $2 billion.
When the buyout fell through because of DOJ scrutiny, the company came under intense pressure in late 1990s when Microsoft started to compete vigorously with its core Quicken business. In response, Intuit launched new web-based products and solutions and put more emphasis on QuickBooks and on TurboTax. The company made a number of successful investments around this time. Among others, it purchased a large stake in Excite and acquired Lacerte Software, a Dallas-based developer of tax preparation software used by tax professionals. It also divested itself of its online bill payment service unit and extended and strengthened its partnership with CheckFree.
On November 30, 2006, Intuit announced an agreement to acquire Digital Insight, a leading provider of online banking services, for $1.35 billion.[1]
Today, Intuit is one of the largest software companies in the world with about $2 billion in annual revenue and $8 billion market capitalization.
Intuit has been ranked in Fortune Magazine's "Top 100 companies to work for" for the past several years.
[edit] Products
[edit] JumpUp
JumpUp (formerly JackRabbit Beta) is a free social networking and resources site for small business owners and/or start-ups. Free tools and services include an interactive business planner, online training for developing a successful business plan, starting costs calculator, cash flow calculator, break even calculator, templates for business planning and sample business plans.
[edit] TurboTax
TurboTax is a popular U.S. tax software package. There are a number of different versions, including TurboTax Deluxe, TurboTax Premier, etc. TurboTax is available for both Federal and state income tax returns. The software is designed to guide users through their tax returns step-by-step. TurboTax became an Intuit product via the 1993 acquisition of its creator, the California-based company Chipsoft. In 2003 Intuit faced vocal criticism for its TurboTax activation scheme. The company responded by removing the product activation scheme from its product. In 2005 TurboTax extended its offering by allowing any taxpayer to use a basic version of its Federal product for free as part of the Free File Alliance. By 2006 that offer has been limited to Free federal online tax prep & e-file if your adjusted gross income is $50,000 or less, and you are age 50 or under.
TurboTax normally releases its new version in mid-November of each year. For example, TurboTax for Tax Year 2006 is to be released mid-November 2006.
[edit] ProSeries
Intuit's ProSeries tax software evolved from TurboTax and grew over the years to become a full-fledged professional preparer product and a leader in the market. It serves full-time tax preparers who are predominantly sole proprietors with no other employees working on tax preparation. In 2004 two additional ProSeries versions were released - ProSeries Basic and ProSeries Express.
[edit] Lacerte
Lacerteis tax preparation software. It is used by professional accountants who prepare taxes for a living. It is a sister product to ProSeries; however, it is generally used by larger firms with more complex workflows and clients.
Lacerte was originally produced by a company of the same name; this company was acquired by Intuit in 1998.
[edit] TaxAlmanac
TaxAlmanac is a free online tax research resource. Content on TaxAlmanac is written by tax professionals from across the country and takes advantage of the knowledge of academia as well as practitioners. The site includes key information including the Internal Revenue Code, Treasury Regulations, Tax Court Cases, and a variety of articles.
Modeled after Wikipedia, TaxAlmanac was launched in May 2005. The June 6, 2005 edition of Time magazine featured an article entitled "It's a Wiki, Wiki World." on Wikipedia in which TaxAlmanac was highlighted as "A Community of Customers". The November 21, 2005 edition of Business Week magazine featured an article titled "50 Smart Ways to Use the Web" in which TaxAlmanac was selected as one of the 50. TaxAlmanac made the short list as one of the 7 in the collaboration category.
[edit] QuickBase
A web-based collaborative database application. QuickBase was created when Intuit acquired Turning Mill Software in 1999. The application is hosted by Intuit and sold by subscription.
[edit] Quicken
Quicken is a very popular personal finance management tool, with a vast array of features. Development of the UK version of Quicken was discontinued in January 2005.
[edit] QuickBooks
QuickBooks is the most commonly used small-business accounting and management software in the U.S.
[edit] QuickBooks Online Edition
QuickBooks Online Edition is the web-based version of QuickBooks. Some features in the desktop version of QuickBooks are not present in the Online version, so look closely for the features you need. Like other web-based software, this is strong for small distributed organizations with limited resources. As of September 2005, a 20% discount was offered for non-profit organizations. Despite being web based it requires Internet Explorer 6.0 or newer, which is currently available only on Microsoft Windows.
[edit] QuickPayroll
QuickPayroll is the company's successor to the QuickPay add-on to Quicken. Sporting a similar interface to QuickBooks version 5, the software is used for processing payroll in house. Updates to tax tables and software updates, once offered on floppy disks by mail are offered online on a yearly subscription basis.
[edit] QuickTax
QuickTax is a popular Canadian tax software package. The software is designed to guide users through their tax return step-by-step. It is available on CD-ROM or online at QuickTaxWeb.ca, which is free for persons earning less than $25,000.
[edit] Customer Manager
A CRM application that focuses on integration with other tools such as QuickBooks, Microsoft Office Outlook, and more.
[edit] Zipingo
Zipingo is a free website where users can rate services such as contractors, restaurants, and other businesses. Ratings and comments can be entered from the website or through Quicken and QuickBooks.
[edit] Intuit Real Estate Solutions
In 2002, Intuit acquired Management Reports International, a Cleveland-based real estate management software firm. Renamed Intuit Real Estate Solutions (IRES), the company offers Residential, Commercial, and Corporate Real Estate management solutions for Windows and the Web.
[edit] Criticism
Notable cases of vocal public criticism include policy changes in customer support, forced payroll table updates in 1999 QuickBooks, an activation scheme from Macrovision in 2002 TurboTax, and a sunset policy that stops online features from working after a certain amount of time.
Intuit's products for Mac OS X have drawn some criticism for being less feature-rich in comparison to their Windows counterparts.
Another source of discontent is Intuit's phasing-out of the QIF format in favor of the QFX format. These formats are used for downloading information from financial institutions such as banks and brokerages. While use of QIF was free, banks are required to pay a licensing fee to Intuit to allow their customers to download financial data in the QFX format.
[edit] References
- Taylor, Suzanne E. (2003). Inside Intuit: How the Makers of Quicken Beat Microsoft and Revolutionized an Entire Industry. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press. ISBN 1-59139-136-9. - recounts the early years of Intuit, including the aborted acquisition by Microsoft.
- Import issues with QFX and Quicken for Mac
[edit] External links
- http://www.intuit.com/
- http://www.quickbooks.intuit.com/
- http://www.qboe.com/
- http://www.quickbase.com/
- http://www.turbotax.com/
- http://www.itsdeductable.com
- http://www.lacertesoftware.com
- http://www.proseries.com
- http://realestate.intuit.com Intuit Real Estate Solutions
- Intuit's TaxAlmanac Wiki
- http://www.snaptax.com
- Intuit's Zipingo - Consumer Opinion Site for Local Search and Ratings
- Intuit's JumpUp - free tools and services for small business owners
