"Intuit is playing the web services game that Microsoft is talking" is an exciting post by Matt Asay. This relates to one more major battle in the Intuit Microsoft War, which should be important to use all. Matt is an interesting and astute writer on the open source business and computer industry trends. He was especially astute when linking to my quickbooks-blog, even before I got the http://quickbooks-blog.com/ domain. I certainly agree that, "Intuit has the same desktop legacy to overcome, and yet it is running circles around Microsoft in web services momentum. It has aggressively moved to the web, while still holding its place firmly on the desktop." I really like it because his "holding firmly" example links to my first Intuit Pushes Deeper Into Cloud post.
The other reason for excitement relates to new Intuit Microsoft War posts by Larry Dignan (Microsoft talks software plus services; Intuit actually does it) and Dennis Howlett (Intuit: software and services. Are you kidding me?) at ZDNet. The four of us have different takes on the the likely significance and success of these Intuit Microsoft War efforts. However, what strikes me is how personal knowledge often colors what we can see. It is like three (four) blind men examining different parts of an elephant and describing completely different creatures.
I believe my age, CPA status and long computer use, management, programming and security experience, plus my close Intuit and IBM PC insider links, now let me see what others seem to miss in th Intuit Microsoft War.Few see the extent of this Intuit Microsoft War, its long duration, what happened so far and its surprising likely result. The Intuit Microsoft War was well under way almost 25 years ago, when Intuit selected its first venture capitalist. It had a unique contest. The winner had the best answer to the question, "What should Intuit do if Microsoft begins to compete with Quicken." When Microsoft did compete it was so soundly trashed that the then Microsoft President became an Intuit Board member.
The most important Intuit Microsoft War issue is who is fighting. It is really Microsoft against an alliance of Intuit, Google, IBM, Apple, Adobe, Yahoo, Sun and many others. A recent Fortune article on Intuit Chair Bill Campbell credited him with being the best top management consultant in Silicon Valley. Google long shared a parking lot with Intuit. Its venture capitalist said Campbell saved Google and made it a powerhouse. Google has the largest Linux server farm, but no one is talking about how Google and other Campbell clients have taken sides in the Intuit Micorosoft War. For example, Google and Sun have Star Office Suite and they and other have Linux. Their consortium has no need of Windows or Office, which will save many users $500.
The Intuit Microsoft War results should become increasingly devastating for Microsoft. Two years ago Microsoft introduced its third QuickBooks killer, after spending around $2 billion to buy and carry a big company accounting company. Since then the QuickBooks share of small business accounting program sales at retail went from 88% to 94.2%. Microsoft is not even #2. Intuit NetPromoter customer satisfaction ratings dwarf those of Microsoft. Even if the companies used identical technology, Intuit efforts to link accounting program users would be far more successful than comparable Microsoft efforts to link users of Vista and Word. This already involves user-to-user help, where Intuit is way ahead. 7 million TurboTax users now answer 40% of TurboTax user questions, faster and better than Intuit can at peak times. It should soon involve natural language processing suggesting immediate answers to questions and the fastest, easiest and least expensive Intuit-assisted remote computer control and web calls and video. These user-to-user efforts have long been quickly growing into increasingly well-linked accounting, small business supply chain and customer prospecting efforts that have no need for Microsoft.
Standard QuickBooks and Quicken forms, Electronic Data Interchange and 75,000 QuickBooks add-on developers will use tools quickly coming from Intuit, Google, IBM, Apple, Adobe, Yahoo, Sun and Linux to create and improve these supply chains, customer prospecting and related personal relationships, especially since Linux web servers are far more prevalent than comparable Microsoft servers. This will produce the trillions in savings a U.N. Committee estimated long ago, as well as faster, easier, more accurate and less stressful decisions.
Intuit is approaching its Intuit Connected Services effort based on extensive customer input. For now, its users want it to let them keep their desktops, while increasing choices. Incidentally, it will terrifically improve privacy and safety, but users generally do not yet realize this. Unlike Microsoft engineers, however, Intuit engineers observe and interact with users during the usability tests it created. This customer directed innovation means Intuit very rarely makes consequential mistakes. When it does make users unhappy it can reverse course in 5 to 45 days. Its CEO can even write a temporarily offended user like me to, "Keep raising hell when Intuit does something wrong."
The entirely different Microsoft approach instead features long-term disasters like Microsoft Accounting (the official name of the third failed QuickBooks killer), Windows Me and Vista. It will take a generation before users stop asking why they had to waste so much money and time on Windows anti-virus and anti-spyware efforts.
Mike Block, QuickBooks CPA
http://blocktax.com http://quickbooks-add-ons.com/
