Intuit Targets Salesforce.com With Quickbase UpdateIntuit Targets Salesforce.com With Quickbase Update

The latest version of Intuit Inc.'s Quickbase on-demand application platform arrives Monday, and the developer of software for small businesses claims it does everything Salesforce.com Inc. is planning to deliver this summer with the update to its Sforce app-building platform and the debut of its Multiforce app-toggling tool.

Quickbase essentially lets companies build applications for managing business processes ranging from sales and customer support to project management and tracking job candidates. Using simple buttons and drop-down menus, business users can either build on 60 prepackaged application templates, or they can build apps from scratch. "Why wait until summer [for Salesforce's releases] when we've got something now?" asks Jana Eggers, general manager of Intuit's Quickbase unit.

In the updated release, a new grid-editing feature lets entire rows or columns of data be updated in bulk rather than having to do field-level editing. Drop-down lists ensure that bulk edits don't compromise data integrity. Users also can now establish conditional summary fields that will save them time by allowing them to do more granular parsing of information. And a new feature called "getting started" lets users refine their apps out of the gate by selecting from predetermined lists of functions they might need.

The idea is to make it easier and faster for business users to put Quickbase to use, particularly at smaller companies where IT resources are limited. "One of the reasons packaged applications don't work is that they don't think the way people do," Eggers says. "Business users designing applications means better alignment with business processes."

Intuit later this year plans to introduce a library that would give users a forum for sharing applications and best practices. Customers are already doing some of this in the Quickbase community forum and in a Quickbase Yahoo group, but Eggers wants more help at users' fingertips as they work with their Quickbase apps.

Comparing Quickbase to Salesforce as an on-demand business tool is fair to a point, but any designs Intuit has on Salesforce's market may be misguided, Yankee Group senior analyst Sanjeev Aggarwal says. He argues that Intuit's sweet spot is in small businesses with fewer than 200 employees, while Salesforce has outgrown that customer base. That's in large part because Salesforce's evolution into an application-development platform requires expertise beyond the capabilities of small business.

"The class of customers we're talking about don't have the kind of resources to develop these applications internally," Aggarwal says. "Intuit can provide similar kinds of functionality, but the target base is different."

Quickbase pricing starts at $249 a month for up to 10 users.