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Intuit Finally Offers Some Support For Linux

Posted by kdawson on from the double-entry-penguins dept.

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."

9 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. It's the client, not the server we need by Shadoglare · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How many people really care about the server back-end when it comes to something like Quickbooks? Very, very few. The fact that neither Quickbooks nor Peachtree will run under Linux is a HUGE stepping stone for anyone who wants to use it for small business purposes, and this does very little to fix that.

    1. Re:It's the client, not the server we need by Craig+Maloney · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I have a shelf of Linux software that proves you wrong. I've paid for copies of StarOffice, Applixware, WordPerfect, Crossover (back when it was just a Quicktime plug in), MoneyDance and much more. The simple truth of why I'm not spending money for StarOffice anymore is because of OpenOffice does the trick for me, so I haven't upgraded past version 6. True, Linux has a reputation for trying to do things on the cheap, but to say that nobody will spend money for a Linux solution is quite offensive to me. If a product exists, and it isn't priced at some usurious rate (like Quicken for Mac vs. Quicken for Windows), then people will pay for it. (and before someone gets on my case about Quicken vs. Quickbooks, yes I know they're two different products, but I haven't had an opportunity to price them between Mac and Windows).

    2. Re:It's the client, not the server we need by LWATCDR · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I wish you all the best but even in a tech company like the one I work at we want to PAY for our accounting software!
      We want someone to call when it doesn't work right. For LedgerSMB to work well there needs to be a pay for support option with a 24 hour a day support line.
      FOSS is great but it is the support that you really need.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  2. Intuit = Dark Empire by Anonymous+Monkey · · Score: 4, Insightful
    As an accountant that knows a bit about computers I would like to say. I DON'T CARE! We use QuickBooks at work but it dose not mean we like it. QuickBooks is downloading patches and calling home as much as Windows. If you want to use it's 'advanced' features like e-mailing invoices they want you to use Intuit servers.

    I know, I'm a bit paranoid. But I work with computers and accounting. Paranoia is part of the job.

    --
    We are the Borg...
  3. Re:More about the momentum. by rsmoody · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I agree, and for my place of employment, this could be a nice thing. We have many clients that can barely afford the license for QuickBooks period, much less a server OS to run the backend on. Thus, what happens is, it gets installed on a workstation, which is not the best of ideas. Now, we can just point them to a less expensive server with RedHat, or heck BSD if it will work, and save them some money if all they are needing is QuickBooks and a file/print server.

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    45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  4. Y'all are missing the point by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Okay, so it's a server, not a client. Have you forgotten all lessons taught by Microsoft? While we all like to decry the weakness of monocultures, we all also like them at least on some levels. The most important one, and the one that really brought Windows success as a server platform (hint: it wasn't that it was a better server) is familiarity. Operating Windows and Windows NT has always been similar, with slight lapses here and there (like NT4 trailing Windows 95) and this is precisely how they gained a share of the server market.

    Linux has until recently been the only company gaining market share in the server market, by taking a little away from Windows and a lot from Legacy UNIX(tm). But Windows has [recently] been making headway of its own. This scares (or at least bothers) me, because I want to live in a future with less Microsoft in it, not more. But anything that gives Linux more of a boost as a server inevitably increases the chances of running Linux on the [corporate] desktop as well, which has positive ramifications for everyone but Microsoft.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  5. Any FOSS Alternative to by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    QuickBooks / Turbo Tax?

    If not, why not?

  6. Re:A good thing...? by jedidiah · · Score: 3, Insightful

    BULL.

    Intuit is one of the major kill app vendors. They're one of the first companies to come up when someone wants to whine about some altOS not running some critical piece of Windows software.

    Landscape designer and most of the other crap you see at CompUSA is much less relevant.

    --
    A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  7. Cross platform support by Dadoo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'll agree with you there, but Intuit had better start getting more serious about cross-platform support. Right now, Microsoft seems like they're all over the place, but I would bet money that, if and when they get it back together, Intuit will be their next target. Unless they've ported their software to other platforms by then, they're pretty much done for.

    --
    Sit, Ubuntu, sit. Good dog.