Intuit Finally Offers Some Support For Linux

walterbyrd sends us to the ZDNet blog, where Dan Farber & Larry Dignan write: "Intuit said Wednesday it will allow QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions to operate on Linux servers. For Intuit, the move is a bit of a milestone — QuickBooks is the first of its products [to] work on open source software."

Comments

Re:It's the client, not the server we need

[BlakeReid]

If a Linux Quickbooks client ever surfaces, prepare to wait for version parity. We just tried to switch our accountant over to the Mac version of QB 2007 from Windows 2006 and within a couple of days he had a page-long list of missing features and deal-breaking bugs. Thank the lord for Parallels.

Re:It's the client, not the server we need

[jeiler]

Peachtree (2006) will work on Wine, but needs some tweaking: http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?iVersionId=603 7

Re:It's the client, not the server we need

[Shadoglare]

I don't know about 2006 - but I can't tell you 2007 won't work. At all. It uses a .NET backbone now, which won't run under Linux to matter what you do - I own it, and I've tried repeatedly.

Re:It's the client, not the server we need

[LWATCDR]

This is Quickbooks Enterprise not Quickbooks and yes it does matter.
The company I work uses SAGE for it's accounting but we us Linux for our servers... Except for the one that runs the accounting.
This product is for medium size businesses not small business. So yea it is a big deal.
I think a Linux version of Quicken would be great Dell could sell it. A Linux version of Quickbooks would also be nice for small companies. But for Quickbooks Enterprise the server side is the logical first move. Lots of medium sized companies would like to use Linux servers but are still using Windows Desktops. Thank you SAMBA.

Re:It's the client, not the server we need

[einhverfr]

We, on the LedgerSMB project are working really hard at addressing this need. For the average small business owner, it is not to the point where the software is easy to install and set up, and it still requires some hand holding. But within 1-2 years, I expect we will have an open source competitor to Quickbooks and Peachtree which will handle every business well from zero to several hundred employees.

Right now, the software is suitable to those who really want an open source solution, but once we get to 2.0... Come join our community and help make this happen. :-)

Re:It's the client, not the server we need

[Shadoglare]

The only "native" equivalent software I've found so far (and I've looked extensively) is a product called MyBooks from Appgen: http://www.appgen.com/aptus/my_books_professional_ linux2.htm However, the linux version is a client/server product, meaning you have to have a server running in the background to use the program, even if it's being run on one machine. I tried out the Windows version which was decent, but for the life of me I couldn't get it to work right on my Linux box and didn't feel it was worth struggling with. In the end I gave up and decided to use GnuCash for the books and OpenOffice for inventory tracking.

Re:It's the client, not the server we need

[einhverfr]

Agreed on your points. However, when you say "Sage" I am sure that is as descriptive as saying "some program made by Intuit." I assume you mean Sage 500?

However, there is no reason why one cannot have a darned good accounting engine which could work for both small and large businesses (perhaps with alternate user interfaces). The major obstacles to such a solution have been the willingness to depend on proprietary database technologies which add a huge cost barrier to small businesses. There is no reason why this has to continue.

One of the major focuses of LedgerSMB has been the development of such an engine and the ability to have alternate user interfaces. We are not to this goal yet, but we do have an accounting solution that is likely to be of interest to the open source community and will shortly be a viable competitor to Sage 500 and MS Dynamics/Great Plains. I have actually been involved in one migration from Dynamics and am involved in one from Sage 500 at the moment.

At the same time, as we head towards 2.0, we expect to be able to make the user interface far more suitable for smaller businesses. I hope that within two years, we have a program that can compete extremely favorably with everything from Quickbooks Basic to Sage 500. That is a tall order, I know, but we have a roadmap to get there.

People who are interested in this are certainly welcome to join our community and help make this happen.

Re:quicken with wine

[morgan_greywolf]

Yes. Older versions of Quicken run okay if already installed (the installer doesn't work right).

WINE still needs lots of TLC before it will mature enough to run something that needs to run very reliably, like Quicken. Personally, I use Quicken under a Windows 2000 version running under QEMU on top of Ubuntu 7.04.

Forget the Linux support, Intuit needs actual

[einhverfr]

presales customer service.

I have a customer who is trying desperately to move all servers away from Windows (they currently run Sage 500), so I called up Quickbooks (the number the sales report said to call) for information as to when Linux server support would be available. They refused to answer any questions unless I had a support account. I suppose they are not interested in getting migrations to happen.

I suppose I cannot recommend such a product to my customer.

Re:Now if they could just do Turbo Tax for Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless you are using some really advanced functionality, use the web version of Turbo Tax. Works like a charm in Linux/Firefox.

Re:It's the client, not the server we need

[Bassman59]

If a Linux Quickbooks client ever surfaces, prepare to wait for version parity. We just tried to switch our accountant over to the Mac version of QB 2007 from Windows 2006 and within a couple of days he had a page-long list of missing features and deal-breaking bugs. Thank the lord for Parallels.

Quicken for Mac has fewer features than Quicken for Windows, too. First, the Quicken "Home and Business" edition doesn't exist for Mac, which I can live with as I don't do "business" stuff any more (no more freelance). The real dealbreaker, though, is that the database formats between Quicken Mac and the Windows Quicken Premier are not compatible and when you try to do their conversion, your categories and such all get trashed. There's really no good reason for the databases to be incompatible.

so, yeah, I'm doing the Parallels thing, too.

GnuCash

[DaveJay]

When I finally convinced my wife to let me manage the money, I moved over to GnuCash (she was using Quicken.)

The learning curve was steep, not because of the app itself (though a bit) but because I didn't truly understand the basics of accounting. This is something that Quicken does a good job of preventing people from realizing.

The help docs were *fantastic*, and I learned a great deal in a short time. Now that I use GnuCash, I have a much stronger understanding of where my money goes. Couldn't be happier.

I realize that's slightly off-topic, but it seemed a good time to mention it.

Quicken 5 for DOS runs GREAT under FreeDOS

[mcrbids]

For Intuit, the move is a bit of a milestone -- QuickBooks is the first of its products [to] work on open source software."

Ok, Quicken IS NOT Quickbooks. But for a decent, simple-to-use checkbook manager, Quicken is hard to beat. It's incredibly user-friendly, and the ancient version I have, version 5.0 for DOS, works great on FreeDOS. I use it all the time, Quicken 5 on FreeDOS on Linux via SSH in Xterm. (no kidding!)

This lets me do my books anytime, anyplace where I can get an xterm or putty loaded. (pretty much EVERYWHERE) Since it's done everything I've ever needed for my personal checking accounts, why would I use anything else?

Just The Facts, Please...

[stan_freedom]

I saw the article yesterday and contacted QB.

• The impacted product is Quickbooks Enterprise Solutions, which is the top-tier QB product. This is the next step above Quickbooks and Quickbooks Pro.
  
• The cost for 5 users is $3,000, 10 users $4,500, 20 users $7,500.
  
• This version uses the Sybase iAnywhere SQL-compliant database as the back end. There is no additional charge for the DB.
  
• The only components that run on Linux are the DB and a daemon that apparently manages connections.
  
• According to QB support, the linux components won't be available until June 25th, and will be free to download.
  
• The linux documentation says is only tested (and thus supported) on Fedora FC6 and OpenSuse 10.2.
  
• While not confirmed, it appears that the DB can be accessed via ODBC or possibly even FreeTDS, so that other applications can see the QB data.
  
• This does not work with the Terminal Services version of Quickbooks Enterprise Solutions. It only works when the fat client is installed on the user's desktop.
  
• SAMBA must be enabled and mapped to the client PCs.
  
• A thirty-day trial version of QB Enterprise Solutions can be obtained by calling the number at this site, although I haven't confirmed it will work with Linux. I called yesterday afternoon, and received a tracking number this morning. We are a paying customer, so your mileage may vary.
  

I don't particularly care for QB, but it is the product I have to support at my company. If I can deploy the backend on an existing Linux box, that's one less Windows server to worry about. In fact, I'm down to just one Windows server now. Currently it's a PITA to get info into and out of QB, especially in a real-time fashion. Having an standard SQL interface should improve the situation dramatically, especially for my in-house LAMP apps.

On a related note, the company/org/individual that writes a QB knock-off (think OpenOffice compared to MS Office) will make a killing. SMBs can't justify the learning curve of replacing QB. Remove that barrier, and I think many companies would consider switching. In particular, we need a web-enabled product that looks/behaves like to QB.