Intuit’s Switch to Online Services
Last month, Intuit Inc., a business accounting solutions provider, had more than 300,000 customers stranded when a power failure shut down the company’s servers. This was perhaps a wakeup call for Intuit to consider Software as a Service.
As planned by Brad Smith, CEO at the company, Intuit will transfer more than 75% of its sales to Web-based services by 2015. Intuit will make a series of internet company acquisitions. Additionally, the company will reform operations and product features so that Intuit applications, such as for TurboTax and Quicken, will run dependably as online services.
“We don’t have the luxury of going down,” Smith says. “We are required to be available, 24/7, and we’re doing everything we can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
In the meantime, Intuit is making investigations into the June power outage and how it can be avoided in the future. Data centers will also be made more efficient and centralized. Smaller offices will be shut down and operations will be concentrated in an advanced, 240,000-square-foot facility built in Quincy, Washington.
According to Smith, the Intuit strategy since January 2008 has been to adapt from a desktop company to an internet company.
So far, the company provides online services to handle small business payroll and payments, manage health care costs, pay physicians, build websites, give financial advice, and process credit card charges over mobile phone. Intuit’s most conspicuous acquisition last year was $170 million for Mint.com, a service that records, analyzes, and creates graphics on data from consumer accounts on all spending habits. The company plans on integrating some Mint.com services with its other software offerings.
Popularity: 8% [?]
No comments
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading ...
