QuickBase® is a hosted Enterprise 2.0 application platform designed for business users and part of the Intuit product group. It lets you select ready-made online workgroup applications or templates designed to solve common business problems, customize them to suit individual processes, and share within a team. Most people can modify applications on their own, without enlisting help from their IT department. It began in the 00s as an application before its time and now the market (aka enterprise 2.0) has caught up with it and its customer base is expanding. You can read more on their QuickBase Team Collaboration Blog. Recently, QuickBase announced a new program to serve two new audiences, those who do not want to create their applications no matter how easy it is and those who want to develop applications for the first crowd.

To serve these two markets QuickBase recently launched the beta release of the QuickBase Development Environment and a new QuickBase Developer Program. This new Platform-as-a-Service will allow developers to quickly develop rich Internet applications, or RIAs, which work with QuickBooks® using a new toolkit that leverages the Adobe® Flex® open source development framework and QuickBase’s well-tested on-demand database, application and workflow capabilities. Last week, a group of us App Gap bloggers spoke with Bill Lucchini, vice president and general manager of Intuit QuickBase who said. “We are now enlisting the help of an enormous community of talented developers to create innovative, rich Web-based solutions to important business problems. To ensure developers can continue to innovate we’re also providing them with the fastest and easiest way to build a profitable Software-as-a-Service business.” They are also helping them run their business with support in such as areas as billing through the Intuit product suite. The idea is to recruit and help their business partners in multiple ways to ensure mutual success. It seems like a win-win to me.

QuickBase is going beyond simply providing another development platform, as their recent press release said, their third party developers will be able to reach a potential market of nearly 25 million employees within the small businesses that use QuickBooks®. Applications built on the platform will be featured on the Intuit Solutions Marketplace, which reaches millions of small businesses looking for QuickBooks add-ons. Once applications are deployed, QuickBase will only charge their developers for the computing resources their applications use. QuickBase will also manage customer billing so developers can focus on creating great solutions, not moving money. The win-win gets better. If you are part of a large company why not leverage its reach and customer base in creative ways. Work has begun and examples are demonstrated at the QuickBase booth (#421) at Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco from April 22-25, 2008.

This announcement has gotten some wide coverage, including:

• TechCrunch noted the advantages that QuickBase brings to a growing number of major developers who are opening their program to third party development in a post titled, “Watch Out Salesforce. Intuit Opens Up QuickBase To Developers”.
• Webware joined in with its post, “Intuit getting into the hosted app business”.
• Bob Warfield at SmoothSpam wrote that QuickBase did their homework. “Intuit went out to a series of focus groups drawn from their developer community and other sources and came back with 3 requirements for the platform.” First was necessary but not sufficient, provide a sound technology platform with no limits. But that is just table stakes as Bill Lucchini noted to us. Second, their developers told them that they also have to make it possible to create a profitable business on the platform. Lastly, make it easy to get started, which is why QuickBase is leveraging the Intuit parentage to save significant cost and time by handling billing, integration with QuickBooks, provisioning, email connectivity, and other business necessities.

As I said, a win-win-win, as it helps QuickBase, their developers, and their mutual clients.