My countdown to Google acquiring Salesforce.com notwithstanding, Google pursues SMB aggressively by partnering with Intuit.
With this deal Google Base finally gets traction. However, I am still convinced that a SMB acquisition is in play for Google. Of the 73 products available around 11 are business focused. Both Intuit and Salesforce offer the easiest way to get businesses to attract more SMBs and cut-off oxygen to Microsoft’s lame CRM efforts to date.
In retrospect, I should have considered Intuit as a better acquisition candidate than Salesforce. The latter has made inroads into mid-market players while Intuit has remained true to the SMB and SOHO markets – firms that would more readily switch to ad based free finance & accounting tools. Let’s play match up:
Quicken makes a nice companion to Google Finance
Quickbooks/base works well with Google Base, Spreadsheets, Adsense, and Analytics
TurboTax/TurboTax Web is nice cash cow and now maybe Google can let users file taxes for free
Intuit Real Estate for Google Local, Maps, Base
Quickbook Merchants plays well with Google Checkout
OK, I am sold – can I change my countdown from Salesforce to Intuit? Why the hell didn’t I see this earlier? Let’s buy me some INTU.
Note: I am not an analyst, trader, broker or in anyway associated with the financial services except for a few gigs here and there. I have a pretty torrid record with investments. Of late I have come to believe in the John Bogle philosophy: index index index! If anyone out there actually buys INTU based on the above clap-trap and suffers the consequence you have no one to blame but yourself. Capische? Of course if you do buy INTU and are richly rewarded make sure to remember you heard it here first!
