Intuit Makes Cloud Move With £261m DemandForce Purchase

Intuit has revealed the acquisition of DemandForce Inc for $423.5 million (£261m) in cash.

DemandForce, based in San Francisco, produces mobile device, email, and social-networking tools that help small and mid-size businesses to automate their marketing and customer communications. DemandForce also incorporates online user reviews into its package.

Software As A Service

Mountain View, California-based Intuit, which makes TurboTax and QuickBooks, said that DemandForce will accelerate the company’s strategic expansion into other types of high-value software as a service products for small businesses.

Intuit has expanded beyond desktop software into delivering cloud-based software and services. Naturally, this includes its specialities: tax preparation for households, personal and small-business bookkeeping, and small-business payroll processing.

The company also said Demandforce has achieved strong traction in vertical industries such as health care, dentistry, automotive, optometry and chiropractics.

The transaction is expected to add one to two percentage points to Intuit’s revenue growth in fiscal 2013.

The deal is expected to close in May.

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