Intuit to Acquire Homestead Technologies
Expanding Small Business Offerings to Include Web Site Creation and E-commerce Solutions — MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Intuit Inc. (Nasdaq:INTU) today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to purchase Homestead Technologies Inc. …
Context & Ripple Effects
Intuit's agreement to buy Homestead Technologies, reported at a $170 million figure by Read/WriteWeb's same-day pickup, moves the company beyond its financial-software core into website creation and e-commerce for small businesses — a capability buy rather than a build. The deal was picked up widely enough the same day to signal real market interest in how far Intuit intends to stretch its small-business franchise.
It also lands just months after Intuit brought in former Yahoo CIO Lars Rabbe in June 2007, a hire that already pointed toward heavier investment in web infrastructure behind the product line.
First-order effects
- Homestead's small-business customers and its site-building/e-commerce tools now fold into Intuit's portfolio, giving QuickBooks users a native path from bookkeeping to a live web storefront.
- Intuit closes a product gap immediately: instead of developing website creation in-house, it acquires an operating service with an existing customer base.
Second-order effects
- Standalone small-business site-builder vendors lose the argument that web presence and business software are separate purchases — Intuit can bundle Homestead's tools alongside its accounting products, pressuring rivals to partner or sell.
- Domain and hosting partners around Homestead face repricing risk as Intuit integrates the service into its own subscription and distribution channels.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, incumbents in business software will keep buying their way into adjacent small-business services rather than ceding the customer relationship to web-native upstarts — making capability acquisitions the standard route for full-stack SMB platforms.
The trend: Intuit is assembling a full-stack small-business platform through acquisition, extending from financial software into every online service a small business needs to operate.