Intuit Announces a New Open-Source Community Site

Intuit, an open-source software maker, has announced it will launch a new open-source community site, code.intuit.com, which aims to supplement the partner platform it launched earlier in the year. The new site will provide partners with sample code, toolkits and documentation aimed especially at SaaS projects. Intuit makes some popular business software products like Quicken and Quickbooks.

“code.intuit.com is next step to developing an open small business ecosystem and we believe that by adopting the open source model for the Intuit Partner Platform, we’re enabling developers to collaborate with us to enhance their applications and the platform and Small businesses will benefit from a better SaaS experience with Web applications that work together and solve real business needs,” the company wrote in a blog post announcing the new site. “code.intuit.com has been in open beta for a couple of months now and many more months in development. Now out of beta, the site hosts and provides early access to code, toolkits and documentation for the Intuit Partner Platform.”

The goal is to provide developers with the tools and help needed to create software to supplement Intuit's current offerings. By creating an “open small business ecosystem” the company hopes that other developers and small businesses will step up and fill in the needs their customers may have. And with 25 million users, employees at small businesses, for just Quickbooks, the financial software the company makes, there is a definite market for third-party apps.

The new community site is part of a larger move on the company’s part to aid its partners, having recently launched an improved Partner Platform that allows developers to use any tool or language to create software for Intuit products. The program had been around for a while but it had some limitations and restrictions that were removed with the latest release. Developers, which have already been contributing software and code using the new platform, will now have a place to further spur innovation with the community site.