Intuit Partner Platform Adds Open Source Community

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Code.Intuit.com Makes it Easier for Developers to Collaborate and Deliver SaaS Applications to Small Businesses

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU) launched an open source community for developers interested in creating online applications for small businesses. The community, at code.intuit.com, lets developers work with Intuit and each other to build Software-as-a-Service, or SaaS, applications that solve important small business problems on the Intuit Partner Platform.

The community is part of Intuit's commitment to provide an open and flexible Platform-as-a-Service that helps developers build SaaS businesses. The platform's recently announced Federated Application capability gives developers the ability to write applications using any programming language, host them on any cloud infrastructure, connect them to the Intuit Partner Platform and market them to millions of Intuit's small business customers.

"The Intuit Partner Platform is creating a connected and thriving small business ecosystem," said Alex Chriss, business leader of the Intuit Partner Platform. "By adopting the open source model, we're enabling developers to collaborate with us to enhance their applications and the platform. As a result, small businesses will benefit from a better SaaS experience with Web applications that work together and solve real business needs."

The site will host and provide early access to code, toolkits and documentation for the Intuit Partner Platform. By collaborating, sharing and improving platform components, developers can build their own businesses faster and easier and take advantage of the work of Intuit and their peers when building applications.

The first Intuit-sponsored open source projects are designed to expand a shared infrastructure to make it easier for developers to integrate their applications with the Intuit Partner Platform. In the future, Intuit will sponsor additional projects and encourage developers and organizations to create and run their own Intuit Partner Platform-related projects. The initial Intuit-sponsored projects under Common Public License include: 

    --  IPP Developer Toolkits: Language-binding libraries and sample code for
        the Intuit Partner Platform. The toolkits under development include
        Java, J2ME, Ruby, .Net, iPhone(TM) and others.
    --  IPP Federated Authentication: Working and sample code for Federated
        authentication for the Intuit Partner Platform using SAML.
    --  Princeussie for Flex: Adobe(R) Flex(R) components which extend the
        existing Intuit Partner Platform Kingussie frameworks.
    --  IPP Deployer: Maven and Ant tools for deploying Intuit Workplace
        applications. This project is in incubation.

Third-party Contributions

Third-party developers are currently contributing code to the community. VerticalResponse, Inc. provided a sample Ruby SAML gateway that enables authentication between the Intuit Partner Platform and their application, VerticalResponse for Intuit Workplace.

"Contributing our gateway code serves two purposes," said Alan Keller, vice president of business development at VerticalResponse. "First it will help other developers integrate their applications with Intuit's platform and bring more users to it. In addition, we expect to benefit from future code contributions the community will provide.

"Everyone benefits here - developers and customers alike. We're all working hard to develop great small business apps, and sharing code with Intuit's developers and others can dramatically speed up development of additional features and enhancements to our offerings. And in the end, that really benefits the customer."

Week-long CloudJam Announced

Intuit will host an Intuit Partner Platform CloudJam to encourage third-party developers to collaborate with Intuit on a number of open source projects and speed up their efforts to add their own applications to the platform. The event will take place Aug. 11 - 13 at the company's Mountain View, Calif. headquarters. The IPP CloudJam will also be available online with live webinar sessions taking place throughout the week. More details are available at http://developer.intuit.com/IPPCloudJam.

"We've had an enormous level of interest from developers wanting to reach the small business market by tapping into our platform," said Alex Barnett, group manager of developer relations of Intuit. "This CloudJam is an opportunity for external developers to collaborate with Intuit in a focused effort to help them bring their products to market quickly and help them grow their SaaS businesses."

Additional Resources 

    --  code.intuit.com - Intuit's open source community for the Intuit Partner
        Platform.
    --  Intuit Partner Platform - Intuit's platform-as-a-service.
    --  Intuit Workplace - Online destination for small businesses to use Intuit
        Partner Platform applications.
    --  Federated Applications - Information and resources on how to integrate
        existing SaaS solutions to Intuit Partner Platform.

About Intuit Inc.

Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU) is a leading provider of business and financial management solutions for small and mid-sized businesses; financial institutions, including banks and credit unions; consumers and accounting professionals. Our flagship products and services, including QuickBooks(R), Quicken(R) and TurboTax(R) , simplify small business management and payroll processing, personal finance, and tax preparation and filing. ProSeries(R) and Lacerte(R) are Intuit's leading tax preparation offerings for professional accountants. Our financial institutions division, anchored by Digital Insight, provides on-demand banking services to help banks and credit unions serve businesses and consumers with innovative solutions.

Founded in 1983, Intuit had annual revenue of $3.1 billion in its fiscal year 2008. We have approximately 8,000 employees with major offices in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, India and other locations. More information can be found at www.intuit.com.

Intuit, the Intuit logo, QuickBooks and the Intuit Partner Platform, among others, are registered trademarks and/or registered service marks of Intuit Inc. in the United States and other countries. 


    Source: Intuit Inc.

Released July 27, 2009