Intuit Inc. and Google Inc. 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 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 Maps, creating and managing advertising campaigns with Google AdWords and posting their products for sale on Google through Google Base - 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.

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.

Intuit will also incorporate Google's powerful search engine, Google Desktop, into QuickBooks 2007 so users will be able to quickly find customer, vendor or financial information anywhere within QuickBooks or on their desktop. For security, the new tool can search QuickBooks data only when it is accessed from within QuickBooks and is tied to QuickBooks user permissions so search results are limited by the searcher's authorization level.

The Google marketing tools will be available with U.S. versions of QuickBooks 2007 products and services, including Simple Start, Pro, Premier, Enterprise Solutions, QuickBooks Point of Sale, Invoice Manager and Credit Card Processing Kit, which will be available in the fall of 2006. Google Desktop will be available with U.S. versions of QuickBooks 2007 Simple Start, Pro, Premier, Invoice Manager and Credit Card Processing Kit.