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Strangely enough, one of the worst companies I worked for (Intuit) passes these "signs" test with flying colours. They have plenty of money, a huge customer bas

Strangely enough, one of the worst companies I worked for (Intuit) passes these "signs" test with flying colours. They have plenty of money, a huge customer base (thanks to a near monopoly on users who have years of financial data their data locked in to their apps. the desktops apps are decent. The web apps suck.), version control (Perforce), low turnover (no one leaves unless they are kicked out -- there is little real work to do and very high salaries, which attracts a certain type of developer). Intuit doesn't "get" the web and is desperately afraid of someone developing a web app to compete with their desktop apps(their own web apps are very sub par). PG said in his "Ideas we'd like to fund" essay. "21. Finance software for individuals and small businesses. Intuit seems ripe for picking off. The difficulty is that they've got data connections with all the banks. That's hard for a small startup to match. But if you can start in a neighboring area and gradually expand into their territory, you could displace them. " On the positive side they did crush Microsoft (Money). Ok I am rambling. Back to work.

stuff4ben 17y ago
I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that Intuit doesn't get the web when their TurboTax web app is pretty good. Then again I didn't work there so maybe their tax software was handled by a different division than their Quicken products.
- plinkplonk 17y ago
  "I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that Intuit doesn't get the web when their TurboTax web app is pretty good. Then again I didn't work there so maybe their tax software was handled by a different division than their Quicken products." I based my statements on (a) what I saw within Intuit about how the webapp is made/maintained (b) the customer complaint calls I heard (c) knowledge of the expected and actual revenue from the web app (the desktop app was acquired btw, the webapp built inhouse) and (d) the "strategy" meetings I attended. No "disengunous"ness intended. For more than a decade INTU was a desktop company and that mindset pervades the company including their technical people. The web is deeply disconcerting to Intuit and their nightmare is that two guys in a garage will come up with something that takes their cash cows away. It maybe an unsual idea for people outside Intuit, but the top management is not laughing. (I guess something to this effect was what PG meant by "Intuit seems ripe for picking off". I agree. They are. Very.) Another thing they haven't got a grip on is the success of the IPhone. There are a bunch of people who have been working for the last two years on getting native IPhone versions of various Intuit apps to work. they aren't having much success. Again I know this from working there, attending very high level strategy meetings and so on. My post above was(is) just my opinion, worth exactly what anonymous opinions on the web are worth. It was an off the cuff post posted while my code was building and deploying, which I thought might be of interest to people on this forum. I don't want to get into a debate on the merits of TT or Intuit. Pax.

stuff4ben 17y ago

I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that Intuit doesn't get the web when their TurboTax web app is pretty good. Then again I didn't work there so maybe their tax software was handled by a different division than their Quicken products.

plinkplonk 17y ago
"I think it's a bit disingenuous to say that Intuit doesn't get the web when their TurboTax web app is pretty good. Then again I didn't work there so maybe their tax software was handled by a different division than their Quicken products." I based my statements on (a) what I saw within Intuit about how the webapp is made/maintained (b) the customer complaint calls I heard (c) knowledge of the expected and actual revenue from the web app (the desktop app was acquired btw, the webapp built inhouse) and (d) the "strategy" meetings I attended. No "disengunous"ness intended. For more than a decade INTU was a desktop company and that mindset pervades the company including their technical people. The web is deeply disconcerting to Intuit and their nightmare is that two guys in a garage will come up with something that takes their cash cows away. It maybe an unsual idea for people outside Intuit, but the top management is not laughing. (I guess something to this effect was what PG meant by "Intuit seems ripe for picking off". I agree. They are. Very.) Another thing they haven't got a grip on is the success of the IPhone. There are a bunch of people who have been working for the last two years on getting native IPhone versions of various Intuit apps to work. they aren't having much success. Again I know this from working there, attending very high level strategy meetings and so on. My post above was(is) just my opinion, worth exactly what anonymous opinions on the web are worth. It was an off the cuff post posted while my code was building and deploying, which I thought might be of interest to people on this forum. I don't want to get into a debate on the merits of TT or Intuit. Pax.