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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.
Profile
Intuit headquarters in Mountain View
The company was founded in 1983 by Scott Cook and
Tom Proulx in Mountain View, California.
Intuit makes the popular personal finance programs Quicken and TurboTax (and its Canadian counterpart, QuickTax), as well as the
small business accounting program QuickBooks. In
addition, they produce 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. International product
versions are now predominantly produced by third-party localizers or licensees.
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
with a buyout offer from Microsoft in 1995; at this time
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 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 has about $2 billion in annual revenue and $10.8 billion market
capitalization.
Intuit has been ranked in Fortune Magazine's "Top 100 companies to work for" for the past several years.[2]
Products
Quicken Incorporation Services
Quicken Incorporation is a document filing service.
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.
Turbotax
TurboTax is a 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.[3] 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 for taxpayers whose adjusted gross income is $28,500 or
less (or $52,000 for those in the military), and those 50 or under.
TurboTax normally releases its new version in mid-November of each year. TurboTax for Tax Year 2006 was released mid-November
2006.
The Federal version of TurboTax Business is usually available sometime between November and the following January. The State
version can take longer.[citation needed]
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. In 2004 two additional ProSeries versions were released -
ProSeries Basic and ProSeries Express.
Lacerte
Lacerte is 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.
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"[4] on Wikipedia in which TaxAlmanac was highlighted as "A Community of Customers". The November 21, 2005
edition of Business Week[5] 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.
QuickBase
A web-based collaborative database application that allows business people to create their own custom applications without
writing code. QuickBase was created when Intuit acquired Turning Mill Software in 1999. The application is hosted by Intuit and
sold by subscription. As of August, 2007 it has 225k users among which 170,000 are paying subscribers[6] and over 50 of the Fortune 100 use it for things like Project Management, Supply
Chain Management, or Sales Team Management.
Quicken 2005 Premier Home & Business
Quicken
Quicken is a personal finance management tool, with a vast array of features. There
are several versions of Quicken including, but not limited to: Quicken New User, Quicken Basic, Quicken Deluxe and Quicken
Premier. Each version of Quicken also tends to have the release year in the product name, (eg. Quicken Basic 2007). Other
editions are listed below. Development of the UK version of Quicken was discontinued in January 2005.
Quicken Kids & Money
Web-based program that aims to help parents teach five- to eight-year-old children how to earn, spend, save and share
money.
Quicken Health
Quicken Health is a free online tool for health care consumers enrolled in participating health plans. The product will "allow
members to manage and direct their health care finances, view and organize medical expenses, payments and service histories, and
download and organize personal health claims data," according to an April 2007 story in the San Jose Business Journal.
Quicken Medical Expense Manager
MEM is a desktop software tool for managing healthcare paperwork, tracking claims and payments, and consolidating related
information.
Quicken Rental Property Manager
QRPM is a desktop software tool for managing rental properties, tracking tenants, expenses, payments and producing tax
reports.
QuickBooks
QuickBooks is the most commonly used small-business accounting and financial management software in the U.S..[7][8]
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. 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.
QuickBooks Point of Sale
QuickBooks Point of Sale is software that replaces a retailer's cash register, tracks their inventory, sales, and customer
information, and provides reports for managing their business and serving their customers.
Innovation.intuit.com
Innovation.intuit.com is a website Intuit created to get new solutions into people's hands quickly. The early versions of
these products and services are called roughcuts, and they're offered for free so people try them and give feedback to enable
rapid improvement and make sure they solve real problems well.
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.
QuickTax
QuickTax is a 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. ImpôtRapide is the
French version of QuickTax, mostly used by residents of the province of Québec.
The online version of QuickTax is named QuickTax Web, or ImpôtRapide Web for the French language version.
Customer Manager
A CRM application that focuses on integration with other tools such as QuickBooks, Microsoft Office Outlook, and more.
Zipingo
Zipingo was a free website where users could rate services such as contractors, restaurants, and other businesses. Ratings and
comments can be entered from the website or through Quicken and QuickBooks. The site was closed by Intuit on August 23, 2007.
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.
Intuit Eclipse
Eclipse is an enterprise management software for wholesale distributors. Eclipse is a centralized database (UniVerse) residing
on AIX, (an NT based version is available as well) with client stations connecting via a simple
terminal emulator and a thick, Java based, client. The basic software has such features as support for multi-branch operations,
integrated interface for emailing and faxing (using VsiFax), customer calling queue (troubletickets), and several add-ons are
available for an employee punch-clock, RF warehousing, Digital Imaging, Proof of Delivery/Signature Capture, and many others. On
August 17, 2007 Intuit sold its Eclipse wholesale distribution software and business division to Activant Solutions Inc. of Livermore, California, and the
application has been renamed Activant Eclipse.[9]
Criticism and Controversies
Intuit has generated controversy with some of its business practice decisions made in recent years. The most notable cases of
criticism from users and reviewers include:
Business Policies
- policy changes in customer support which have limited free support to installation issues only[citation needed]
- perceived poor quality related to the use of off-shore customer support[citation needed]
- an activation scheme from Macrovision in 2002 TurboTax,[10]
- Intuit's phasing-out of support for the ubiquitous 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 if they wish to
allow their customers the ability to download financial data in the QFX format.[11]
Upgrade Tactics
Software Quality issues
- Programming issues which cause QuickBooks versions prior to the 2007 to be incompatible with Microsoft Windows Vista[16]
- Intuit's products for Mac OS X have drawn some criticism for being less feature-rich in comparison to their Windows
counterparts.[citation needed]
- The Microsoft Money converter for Quicken does not convert Money data files to Quicken 2008.
References
- ^ Intuit to buy banking software rival. MSNBC (2006-11-30). Retrieved on
2007-06-13.
- ^ 100 Best
Companies to Work For 2007. Fortune (2007-01-22). Retrieved on 2007-06-13.
- ^ Metz, Cade (2003-10-01). Intuit's TurboTax Activation Scheme
Irks Users. PC Magazine. Retrieved on 2007-06-13.
- ^ Taylor, Chris (2005-05-29). It's a Wiki, Wiki
World.. Time. Retrieved on 2007-06-13.
- ^ The Web Smart 50 (2005-11-21). Retrieved on 2007-06-13.
- ^ Lai, Eric (2007-08-22). QuickBase success speeding Intuit's move to SaaS. Computerworld. Computerworld Inc. Retrieved on 2007-09-14.
- ^ Wilcox, Joe (2007-03-03). The Dynamics of QuickBooks and Great Plains. eWeek Mircosoft Watch. Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc.
Retrieved on 2007-09-19.
- ^ Lacy, Sarah; Jay Greene (2005-08-25).
How to Face Off Against Microsoft. BusinessWeek. The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. Retrieved on 2007-09-19.
- ^ Activant Completes Acquisition of Intuit Eclipse Distribution Management Solutions Business.
- ^ Becker, David (2003-02-27). Intuit sued in TurboTax flap. CNet
News. Retrieved on 2007-06-13.
- ^ QIF Data Import Resource Center. Intuit. Retrieved on 2007-06-13.
- ^ Musgrove, Mike (2005-02-06). 'Sunset Policy' Stymies Loyal Quicken Users. Washington Post. Retrieved on 2007-06-13.
- ^ Retirement of online services for older versions of Quicken. Intuit/Quicken. Retrieved on 2007-06-13.
- ^ Foster, Ed (2001-04-30). Study the saga of QuickBooks.
Infoworld. Retrieved on 2007-06-13.
- ^ Foster, Ed. Twist in Intuit's
crippleware techniques doubles the cost of its tax-table service. Infoworld. Retrieved on 2007-06-13.
- ^ Ou, George (2007-01-25). QuickBooks Vista problems are six years in the
making. ZDNet Blogs. Retrieved on 2007-06-13.
See also
External links
Coordinates:
37°25′38″N, 122°5′47″W
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
