Intuit and Google Forge Alliance

Intuit and Google Forge Alliance

Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq: INTU) and Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG) announced today a strategic alliance designed to help millions of small businesses promote themselves online using a variety of popular Google services built into most QuickBooks® 2007 products. The alliance combines Intuit’s deep knowledge and experience solving small business problems with Google’s expertise and reach on the Web to help small businesses address their number one objective – attracting new customers.

For the first time, small businesses can use QuickBooks to market themselves online by listing their businesses on Google Mapsâ„¢, creating and managing advertising campaigns with Google AdWordsâ„¢ and posting their products for sale on Google through Google Baseâ„¢ – a free product listing service. Integrated into QuickBooks 2007, available this fall, QuickBooks customers will have the ability to attract new customers using Google, the world’s leading search engine.

“Intuit is committed to partnering with best-in-class companies to help solve important customer problems,” said Steve Bennett, president and chief executive officer of Intuit. “By partnering with a leading company like Google, we bring together Intuit’s strength in creating easy-to-use solutions with Google’s Web expertise to offer leading-edge online services to help small businesses attract new customers.”

Research by Access Markets International (AMI) Partners, Inc., a leading technology analyst group, found that more than 50 percent of small businesses in the U.S. believe they can use the Internet for sales, marketing and customer support to help grow their business and strengthen customer relationships. This alliance addresses this need by helping small businesses quickly and easily use the Web as an effective marketing tool.

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