Intuit QuickBase provides a la carte Web-based apps

The whole software-as-a-service world is starting to mature – a fact that is obvious not only from the range of SaaS products available but also from the quality of the offerings, the falling prices of service, and the sophistication of the offerings.

Launched back in 2001, QuickBase offered by Intuit is one of the old timers of the SaaS market. Since its launch, QuickBase has matured into a formidable set of a la carte Web-based applications that will appeal to small and midsize businesses, enterprise departments that need a service fast but don’t want to go to their IT departments for any of the usual reasons, and enterprises that determine that specific databases for projects like SOX-compliance would be more costly to run in-house.

QuickBase provides nine categories of business applications:

* Project management

* Sales and customer management

* IT management

* Marketing management

* Professional services

* Legal

* Real estate

* Process excellence

* Human resources and back office management

Each category contains a number of applications – for example, IT management includes a Request Manager, Knowledge Base, Project Portfolio Manager, Feature and Bug Tracker, Asset Tracker, Project Manager, Task Manager, Issues Manager, and a Document Library.

On the other hand if what you really want to do isn’t covered by any of the pre-built applications then you can create your own, including importing your existing data. One of the strongest features of QuickBase applications is that if you don’t like your presentation or database layout you can change it at any time. For more information on QuickBase planned features and updated information check out the QuickBase Blog.

Applications can be shared with varying levels of user access among group members and manager control. Developers can go much further using the QuickBase API to drive the service. Developer support includes creating QuickBase databases and records; adding, modifying, and deleting users; and developers can “combine QuickBase XML output with XSL and XSLT style sheets, as well as JavaScript for precise control over layout and output.”

For more developer details check out the Developer Program, the QuickBase API Reference, and the developer forum.

Pricing starts for 10 users with 5M byte of data and 100M byte of file attachments for $249 per month.