Intuit announced today that private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe (WCAS) will acquire QuickBase, as part of its strategy to focus on small business and tax software. Intuit had announced the spinoff of QuickBase as well as Demandforce and Quicken last August, and today announced that WCAS was the buyer of QuickBase.
QuickBase offers a low-code application platform that non-technical ‘citizen developers’ can use to build applications without writing any computer code. “Intuit started thinking that QuickBase would be focused on small businesses,” explains Allison Mnookin, who had led the QuickBase division at Intuit and is now the new company’s CEO. “But low code is transformational for the enterprise.”
In fact, QuickBase’s traction with enterprise and midmarket companies made it a poor fit for Intuit, which is redoubling its focus on the small business and consumer markets. This move puts QuickBase squarely in competition with established enterprise low-code platform vendors Mendix and OutSystems (see my article on Mendix from October 2015).
OutSystems’ CEO commented on the acquisition. “The market of QuickBase and OutSystems is a $15B opportunity but delivering a great low code platform to the enterprise requires a huge R&D investment,” says Paulo Rosado, CEO of OutSystems. “We’re hopeful this acquisition will make QuickBase a worthy competitor.”
Read the entire article at http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2016/03/08/intuit-announces-sale-of-quickbase-low-code-platform/.
Intellyx advises companies on their digital transformation initiatives and helps vendors communicate their agility stories. As of the time of writing, OutSystems is an Intellyx customer. None of the other organizations mentioned are Intellyx customers. Image credit: Intuit.
