Intuit Acquires ItDuzzit, An IFTTT-Style Service For Businesses To Connect Cloud Apps
More acquisitions for Intuit as it continues to build out its cloud services platform for small and medium businesses. It has bought itDuzzit — a Chicago-based startup that provides tools for businesses …
Context & Ripple Effects
The itDuzzit deal is the latest step in a decade-long build-by-acquisition strategy at Intuit: Homestead Technologies in 2007, Demandforce for $424 million in 2012, and the Docstoc purchase for up to $50 million in December 2013 all fed the same goal of rounding out services for small businesses. The company has paired those buys with product surgery — the QuickBooks Online overhaul in September 2013 was explicitly framed as a response to ramping competition for small-business customers.
itDuzzit adds a different kind of asset than document storage or marketing: an IFTTT-style automation layer that lets businesses connect their cloud apps without custom development. For a company whose QuickBooks Online redesign leaned on Mint.com's design cues, owning the connective tissue between apps is a logical next piece.
First-order effects
- ItDuzzit's Chicago-based team and its app-connection tooling move inside Intuit, giving the small-business platform native integration capabilities rather than relying on third-party connectors.
- Small-business customers on Intuit's cloud services gain a way to automate workflows across their existing cloud apps, deepening switching costs around the QuickBooks ecosystem.
Second-order effects
- Rivals courting small businesses — the same competitive pressure that drove the QuickBooks Online revamp — face pressure to match built-in app-to-app automation or cede the hub position to Intuit.
- Independent integration and middleware vendors serving SMBs risk being squeezed as large accounting platforms absorb connectivity as a bundled feature rather than a paid add-on.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the integration layer itself becomes the contested ground in small-business software: whoever owns the connections between apps controls which services stay sticky, pushing the industry toward platform consolidation over point solutions.
The trend: Small-business software is consolidating around platform owners who acquire the workflow and integration layers, turning standalone cloud-app connectors into bundled platform features.