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Intuit and IBM?

Posted by Bilal Jaffery on May 19th, 2009 in IBM | 6 comments

Guest post by Michelle Rehak, IBM Marketing Manager – Smart Market

When you think of IBM you think of a big company who serves other big companies. So today, when I saw that IBM had partnered with Intuit, I took notice. Intuit, the QuickBooks folks have taken their largest solution: QuickBooks Enterprise designed for small and mid sized businesses, and worked with IBM to deliver this application on an IBM Smart Cube. The idea is that both companies can offer a turn key, plug and play solution without all the hassle typically associated with managing IT.

IBM has been working with other ISV’s offering them the chance to showcase their application on IBM’s Smart Market. All the applications on this market run on a Smart Cube and can be managed / monitored via a Smart Desk which offers incredibly simple administration. All this comes with security and technical support for the application and the Smart Cube it runs on. And since the Cube is connected via the cloud, IBM diagnostics are easy and software downloads are automatic. QuickBooks Enterprise is a new application on the market for companies who want a robust business management application without the complexity and robust price.

Will this be accepted by the market? Well the price is OK at $8000 for the application and Smart Cube that it runs on. And the companies are delivering it via a group of business partners that provide the “whole” solution so this should make it easier for customers. Check out the details and let me know what you think.

http://www.ibm.com/smartmarket/us/en/press/press_intuit_announcement.html

Some more press stories on the news: http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=18327

http://www.geniusinside.com Henry Ferlauto

By another name this essentially “QuickBooks Enterprise Foundations Start.” That is another product of the Nitix acquisition.

The partner (Intuit) is the best I could possibly think of. Both IBM and Intuit need each other. Quickbooks (all flavors from Pro to Enterprise with Premier in between) are the heart of small business in the United States. QuickBooks is the “SAP of SMB Universe.”

Intuit is quickly realizing that with “large medium sized businesses” (say 1,000 – 5,000 employees) and that (Microsoft) Dynamix is growing in market share. They need a strong partner to take on the beast from the great northwest.

Questions and Observations:
(1) Did IBM actually need another brand name (Smart Cube). Rather than make Foundations the sole domain of Lotus, shouldn’t the term “Foundations” be the IBM “suffix moniker” for “Appliance.” There could (should) easily be a “Websphere Foundations” server just as easily as there is a Lotus Foundations server.

Just as we have terms like, “Express” for “lite” and “Enterprise” for very large, The brand Foundations should simply be tacked on to any product in appliance format.

The name “Smart Cube” is adding brand confusion.

(2) Why no built in Notes & Domino? (or at least the option to add it)

(3) The user base numbers for QuickBooks Premier are even larger. There is great opportunity with this product line as well.

(4) At some point IBM should build “Allow for QuickBooks” (Premiere and Enterprise) to have some direct integration with Notes and Domino.

(5) I hear that in Europe Peachtree is the big SMB accounting package. If the popularity of Peachtree in Europe rivals that of QuickBooks here in the U.S., then all comments apply two times over, do the same for Peachtree.

Michelle Rehak

Henry

Great comments. I especially like the Peachtree comment, unfortunately we do not market IBM Smart Business in EMEA yet! Just the US and India. As you point out ISV’s have different strengths in different countries.

I share you concern for confusion between Foundations and IBM Smart Business. The key difference is the market they are designed for. Foundations is for Small Business with applications that can be delivered through a business partner who is an IT generalist. IBM Smart Business is designed for mid sized business and work hand in hand with ISV’s or the ISV resellers to deliver the sotluion. However, that does not mean that this cannot become confusing to customers!

http://www.geniusinside.com Henry Ferlauto

Michelle,

Thank you for the kind words and clarification. Hopefully soon the Smart Cube will be in Europe. I also hope to see the applications combined (e.g. Domino & QuickBooks) on one appliance server.

You not only have a difference in market segment (in this case business size) but product offering (the software under the covers).

Personally I think IBM should have just one brand for all appliances. An appliance can be used at any size business it depends on the specific needs.

Take Lotus Foundations for example. Yes, you are correct, it is primarily targeted at the small shop of less then 500 employees. But the latest version of Foundations opens up a whole new window of opportunity. Specifically I am speaking of the ability for Foundations to be part of a larger Domino domain; where previously it’s only option was to be the center of a small universe.

For consideration of the IBM sales team: Take the automotive companies that run Domino. To my knowledge (in alphabetical order) that’s Chrysler, General Motors, Honda, Mercedes-Benz and Toyota.

Each of them could build a new revenue stream from their dealers and help those dealers better communicate with their customers (and potential customers) by becoming large Foundations service providers. An “Automotive Dealership in a box.” Let the updates come from the respective mothership not unlike how a large company distributes anti-virus definitions – one server goes to the Internet, gets the updates then push the changes, including policies, etc. to the end points.

Now in this scenario for using Lotus Foundations, an application appliance; is the customer enterprise or SMB?

http://www.inter-weavers.com/ Rob Wills

I agree that there is a bit of confusion here with the Lotus Foundations offering which also targets this market up to 500 users. There is nothing stopping us selling QuickBooks or other systems like SAGE on Lotus Foundations but it would be nice if there was a native offering rather than having to install it in a virtual vmWare image.

Intuit and IBM?

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