Content area
Full text
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF. - Intuit Inc. has made a giant step into the nonprofit industry software market by acquiring Flagship Group, the parent of nonprofit software developer American Fundware.
Intuit plans to operate American Fundware as a separate business unit, retain its channel and continue its current products and services under the Intuit brand and the Fundware product names. It is also mulling the development of a nonprofit industry version of its QuickBooks accounting software line, along with strategies for migrating nonprofit industry customers to Fundware products as they outgrow the functionality of QuickBooks.
The deal is noteworthy to the accounting profession, as about 4,000 of the 13,600 accountants who are certified as QuickBooks Professional Advisors have nonprofit industry clients. There are 24,000 certified QuickBooks Professional Advisors in total.
Also, Intuit estimates that its QuickBooks and Quicken software products are used by 265,000 nonprofit organizations, or 16 percent of that market. American Fundware has 3,000 clients, according to data it submitted for Accounting Today's 2002 Top 100 Products report.
However, the companies reach entirely different segments of the nonprofit world.
While QuickBooks costs a few hundred dollars, the average cost of Fundware installations ranges from $12,000 to $15,000.
Fundware resellers reacted quite favorably to the news. "This is great, we now have a lot more money behind the product for development and improvements," said Amanda Boyd, president of Tribrit Technologies, a three-person Fundware reseller in New Braunfels, Texas.
However, the resellers typically doubted seeing many QuickBooks customers migrate to their product because of the vast differences in technologies and prices. "It would be like moving from a Volkswagen to a Ferrari," said Patti Bohonowicz of NonProfit Perspective Inc., in Severna Park, Md.
Reaction from rival nonprofit segment software vendors was mixed. "When you give a product a channel that large [as QuickBooks' Professional Advisors], it could eventually be an issue," said Edward M. Roshitsh, sales...