Online Finance – Rigid Segmentation Doesn’t Work
Recently ReadWriteWeb started a series taking a very high level look at online finance. One of the posts discussed the evolving online finance ecosystem. In the post, RWW editor Richard MacManus interviewed CEO of Xero (see disclosure), Rod Drury and repeated Drury’s assertion that online finance can be separated into four distinct types of markets: [...]
Software+Services…. Intuit Bets that Desktop Software Ain’t Dead Yet
Considering CloudAve’s core thesis is the move to cloud computing, and given this authors penchant for cloud applications, one would have thought any development in the desktop software space would be dismissed. The truth is somewhat different however. I’m a major user of web apps but I’ve also got installed software on my machines – [...]
MinTuit: a Second Look. (You Will Be Assimilated).
TechCrunch50 could not have asked for a better start: they get to announce that personal finance startup Mint winner of the $50K grand prize @ TC50 two years ago just got acquired for $170M. Great exit for a startup – not so sure about concerned users. But the big question today is why it made [...]
IntuMint – What an Intuit Owned Mint Could Mean
Image via CrunchBase Wow… exciting. Eagle eyed CloudAve stalwart Krishnan posted about the reported purchase of Mint.com by Intuit (disclosure – the Intuit Partner Platform is a consulting client but I had absolutely no previous knowledge of this deal nor any insight into Intuit’s plans). Many of us in the SaaS and personal/business finance software [...]
Leveraging Platforms
Disclosure – I was assisted in attending the recent Enteprise 2.0 conference in Boston by Intuit – however, while they are mentioned in the post, this is not a look at Intuit in particular, rather generally at platform plays. After spending time talking to Intuit about it’s Partner Platform a few weeks ago, and getting [...]
Netbooks Emerges from Hibernation as WorkingPoint: SaaS for SMB, with Nicer UI but Reduced Functionality.
(This post is now updated, see bottom)Netbooks, provider of an Integrated SaaS Business Suite for Very Small Businesses came out of hibernation with a new name: WorkingPoint. In the never-ending debate of all-in-one vs. best-of-breed I tend to represent the “old-school” which believes in the value of having one tightly integrated system for most business [...]
Intuit Launches the IPP Version 2
This morning Intuit will lift the wraps on the latest version of the Intuit Partner Platform. I took a briefing from Alex Chriss, Business leader of the IPP a few days ago (disclosure – I’m travelling to Boston for Enterprise 2.0 in a few weeks and will be doing some work with Intuit around the [...]
billFLO – Helping the World Communicate
It’s a big week for product launches – and a busy week for those commenting on the accounting software space. billFLO is this week launching its offering which it claims is the first low cost solution providing electronic invoice exchange for small businesses. Think of it as EDI for the rest of us… billFLO was [...]
Sage Upping the SaaS Ante
We’ve been waiting for a really compelling on-demand accounting offering from one of the big boys. Thus far we’ve had Intuit deliver QuickBooks Online (CloudAve review here) which got a "nice try but back to the classroom" grade. MYOB delivered the first generation of the BusinessBasics Online product (Diversity review here) which at best gets [...]