QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions for Linux Servers

QuickBooks is an accounting software product created and developed by Intuit, Inc. QuickBooks, which developed very fast and became the market leader in small business accounting software. The software became quite familiar among the business owners who had no formal accounting training.

As businesses are increasingly adopting Linux servers, the Intuit thought of creating a new QuickBooks release for Linux servers. The QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions for the Linux servers will be available for the open source users. According to Angus Thomson, vice president and general manager with the Intuit Mid-Market Group, the idea of considering such a release came at the Intuit user conference last year, as there were a number of QuickBooks users who were running most of their business functions on Linux. According to Thomson, these users just did not want "the pain of separate Windows servers" only for running QuickBooks. The Intuit's studies also revealed that 20% of QuickBooks users run Linux servers. Inuit officials stated in the press release announcing the applications' availability:

"Answering the call for an open source option from Information Technology professionals, Intuit Inc. announced today that businesses will soon be able to operate QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions from Linux servers. It is the first time the company has made one of its products available to users of open source systems."

Until now, companies running QuickBooks Enterprise over server-based local area networks had to store the system's database on a Windows server, even if their other applications were running on Linux. Using the new, free Linux Database Server Manager application, QuickBooks Enterprise can now reside on the same Linux server as a company's other applications.

There is no QuickBooks version available yet for the Linux desktops too, and neither does one seem to be developed very soon. Thomson stated on this matter: "We don't find that to be a compelling need today ... Inuit makes product decisions based on what we hear from clients...". According to him, they did not receive from their clients an intensive demand for such an application.