Turbo Tax

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. more...

Home
Cables, Connectors
Filers, Load Balancers
Home Networking, Cable & DSL
Hubs
KVM Switch Boxes, Cables
Mainframe, DEC, VAX, AS/400
Network Interface Cards,...
Networking, Telecom Tools
Other Networking Equipment
Print Servers, Wired
Racks, Mounts & Patch Panels
Router Components, Memory
Routers, Wired
Security, Firewall, VPN
Server Components, Memory
Servers
Software
Antivirus, Security,...
Apple, Macintosh Software
Business & Productivity
Accounting, Finance
Microsoft Money
Other
Peachtree
QuickBooks
QuickBooks Basic
Quickbooks Other
QuickBooks Premier
QuickBooks Professional
Quicken
Quicken Deluxe
Quicken Other
Quicken Premier
Business Card
Business Planning
Business Suites
Corel
Lotus
Microsoft
Office 2000
Office 2000 Small Business
Office 2003 Other
Office 2003 Professional
Office 2003 SBE
Office 2003 Standard
Office 95
Office 97
Office XP Professional
Office XP Small Business
Office XP Standard
Other
Contact Management, PIM
Document Management
Groupware
Other Business &...
Point of Sale Systems (POS)
Presentation
Project Management, Flow...
Resume & Career Management
Scanning and OCR
Spreadsheets
Tax Preparation
H&R Block
Other Tax Software
Turbo Tax
Voice Recognition
Word Processing
Other Word Processing
Word
WordPerfect
Works
Database & Development Tools
Digital Music & Video...
Downloadable Software
Education & Reference
Games & Entertainment
Graphics, Photo & Publishing
Handheld Software
Internet Related Utilities
Kids' Software
Networking
Operating Systems
Other Software
Wholesale Lots
Software, Operating Systems
Storage Equipment, NAS, SAN
Switch Components, Memory
Switches
Telephone Systems, Telecom
UPS, Power Protection, APC
Wholesale Lots
Wireless Networking, WiFi
Workstation Components,...
Workstations, Terminals

Profile

The company was founded in 1983 by Scott Cook and Tom Proulx in Palo Alto, California. It is a notable rare example of a successful Microsoft competitor. According to their website, "Intuit's source of success is not as much technological prowess as it is a relentless focus on the customer."

Intuit makes the popular personal finance programs Quicken and TurboTax, (in Canada known as QuickTax), the popular small business accounting program QuickBooks, 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. Foreign 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 by buyout negotiations with Microsoft in 1995, when 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 successful 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.

Read more at Wikipedia.org