IDN Blog

Peter's View on the QuickBase Developer Program

I've been at Intuit for nearly 6 years now, and as a distinct rarity at Intuit, I've been in the same group the whole time I've been here -- the Intuit Developer Network is what brought me to Intuit in the first place (I was a developer in the network before I joined Intuit) and I've got to say what we've done with the QuickBase Developer Program is the most exciting thing I've worked on here at Intuit, and possibly in my whole career (though the MPact Media Processor and Convex's SuperComputers were pretty exciting as well). 

In fact, as I look back on where I was having the most fun in my work, it's always been about bringing big things to a broader audience.  Convex's niche was in delivering the power of a supercomputer like a Cray, previously available only to huge enterprise or research institution budgets, within reach of an individual department -- delivering 1/2-1/4 the performance of a cray at 1/10th the price.  The MPact Media processor brought the power of high-end video, audio, and modem capabilities, which, at the time, cost $1000+ to add to an already expensive PC into a single chip on a single board costing less than $200. 

Now, with the QuickBase development program we're bringing the power of SaaS application development -- previously available only to people who could afford to rent hosting at a co-location facility, hire 24/7 operations staff and build server AND client side code, and implement a billing and entitlement system to control access to their product -- to any developer who's got a good idea and a little time to implement it.

I'm thrilled with the possibilities, and I'm jazzed by the buzz in the blogs.

Peter+

What people are saying about the QuickBase Developer Program

In preparation for next week's Web 2.0 conference, IDN and the QuickBase team pre-announced the QuickBase Developer Program today to some of the industry's most influential bloggers, and they have taken note.

Please take a look at these posts, and we will do our best to keep this page up to date.

Fear and enterprise in the PaaS channel by ZDNet's Phil Wainewright -- Rather than letting the advent of SaaS and PaaS wipe them out, many solution providers are eager to find ways of embracing the opportunity these new business models present.

Intuit enters the PaaS wars by ZDNet's Phil Wainewright -- What Salesforce.com and WebEx have always talked about doing with their PaaS platforms, Intuit is now doing with QuickBase -- and with a much bigger developer ecosystem.

Intuit opens its QuickBase platform to developers; Plans to get SaaSy by ZDNet's Larry Dignan -- Intuit on Thursday will open its QuickBase platform to third party developers with the aim of creating a software as a service business that will launch this summer. QuickBase is a Web tool used by half of the Fortune 100 to collaborate, manage projects and customer data. Typically, QuickBase is used in divisions within larger companies, [...]

When thinking PaaS, think about it in terms of audience by ZDNet's Larry Dignan -- Software as a service has turned into platform as a service (as if we needed another “aaS”) and as this application battle royale gets underway developers need to think about these efforts in terms of audience. For instance, Bill Appleton, CTO of DreamFactory, which makes cloudware–rich Internet applications that are built to run on outsourced platforms [...]

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/16/watch-out-salesforce-intuit-opens-up-quickbase-to-developers/trackback/

http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2008/04/16/intuits-radical-new-flex-quickbase-cloud-platform/trackback/

http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2008/04/17/get-ready-for-the-affinity-platforms/trackback/

http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9920571-2.html

http://diversity.net.nz/paas-from-a-bookkeeping-app-think-beachheads/2008/04/17/

http://www.coffeeforclosers.org/?p=89

http://blog.jamesurquhart.com/2008/04/intuit-makes-play-for-finances-in-cloud.html

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWym82WKX18&feature=user

Podcast:

http://redmonk.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=333829

To learn more about the program, view video of the platform in action, and apply to be a part of the closed beta, please visit: http://developer.intuit.com/technical_resources/QuickBase/

Best,

IDN

SaaS, and what it means for IDN ISV's

I just had a conversation with one of our Gold developers urging them to move quickly toward developing their application as a web-based application and entering the Software-As-A-Service domain. Like most of our IDN developers, they are 100% focused on meeting the needs of their current prospective customers, so they asked a very smart question. How many of your QuickBooks customers really want SaaS applications?

I happen to have the answer to that based upon our most recent end-user survey, so I will share that with you all now. 12% of our customers surveyed consider web -based software either "critical" or "nice to have". A remaining 45% of our customers are neutral. Approximately 25% will not use web based software.

We have additional data that helps us focus in on the types of applications that our customers plan to use as web-based software. Feel free to use this information to inform your own decision about entering the SaaS world.

	Currently Use		Plan to Use
	Total	Web-based	Total	Web-based
Accounting	60%	14%	51%	19%
Billing and Invoicing	48%	15%	42%	20%
Payroll Management	26%	16%	25%	23%
Data integration & Reporting	19%	20%	18%	28%
Business Management	16%	16%	16%	21%
PDA/Wireless	16%	31%	17%	33%
Document & Image Management	15%	25%	16%	31%
Estimating and bidding	14%	17%	16%	20%
Job Costing	13%	18%	16%	23%
Job Tracking	12%	21%	14%	24%
Time & Project Tracking	11%	26%	15%	30%
Inventory and Order Management	11%	19%	14%	27%
POS (point of sale)	8%	9%	11%	20%
CRM & Sales Force Automation	8%	29%	11%	36%
Shipping	8%	40%	11%	42%
Labels & Bar Codes	7%	22%	12%	26%
Ecommerce	6%	38%	10%	41%
Property Management	5%	18%	8%	24%
Resource & Staff Management	4%	40%	5%	38%
EDI- Electronic Data Interchange	4%	33%	6%	31%
Nonprofit/Donor Management	4%	17%	6%	15%
Service Scheduling/Management	3%	29%	6%	31%
Real Estate Management	2%	31%	5%	31%
Field Service	2%	22%	4%	28%
ERP/Shop Floor Management	1%	40%	3%	17%

One point of view that we have shared around IDN is the notion that customers expect SaaS application to cost less, and are interested in the ability to "add" an application to their work-flow with low risk, low costs and high usability. For many of the traditional ISV's that are a part of IDN, this will mean creating a smaller, simpler application, and thinking about free offers as an entry point. IDN will be working diligently over the coming months to help our developers along this path, with both technical tools, and business and marketing resources.

So, come along with us as we move to Web 2.0 and SaaS applications. It is going to be a wild ride.

Shannon Adkins
Group Manager, IDN

Exhibit at the Sleeter Group's ASCC Conference

The The Sleeter Group's 5th annual Accounting Software Consulting Conference will be held on November 10-13, 2008 in a new location this year: Phoenix, Arizona!

In 2007, over 600 CPAs, accountants, bookkeepers, accounting industry leaders (plus 180 exhibitor attendees) participated in the conference. Each of the last 4 years they have seen at least a 20% growth in attendance and expect similar growth in 2008!

Accountants, CPAs, and bookkeepers are an excellent channel to customers and net promoter of third party add-ons.  They are strong Influencers in the QuickBooks community!

Sign up for the Sleeter Group's Accounting Software Consulting Conference today!

  Please note: In 2007 both Gold and Silver levels were sold out within one week, and the Bronze level was sold out in less than one month. Booth location choices are on a first come first serve basis.