UPDATED 10:18 EDT / AUGUST 10 2010

Cha-Ching, DataCap Acquisitions: Validating Cloud and Virtualization Trends

Quicken developer Intuit has acquired Cha-Ching, adding to its web-mobile toolkits provided to users. The terms of the deal were not disclosed. MidnightApps, the company behind the Cha-Ching Mac and iPhone apps, posted this on its website today:

“The Cha-Ching team has merged with Intuit and will continue to provide you great design, useful features and incredible products as part of the Intuit Personal Finance Group.”

The Cha-Ching app has been removed from the iTunes App Store.

As a personal finance tool, Cha-Ching keeps track of your budget and spending behavior. It’s most appealing feature is its task-oriented capability to pay bills, among other things. It’s grown in popularity since launching a beta version over a year ago, tapping into the instant-gratification needs of app-crazed, smart phone users.

Quicken recognizes the consumer demand for better-associated consumer tools. Intuit already has Mint.com’s $170 million acquisition under its belt, though implementation has been less than thrilling. Let’s hope Intuit’s integration of Cha-Ching’s technology goes more smoothly.

The drive for these types of products validates the cloud on two ends: the personal/enterprise cloud and the virtualization of our product markets. The cloud and web-connected mobile devices have made it easier to digitize products and services, better connect them with other applications, and provide the on-demand access today’s consumer and business demands. These trends work in tandem, as virtualization enables the restructuring of large data sets for individualized purposes.

It looks like IBM is paying attention to these trends as well. It’s acquired Datacap, a company offering document-capturing and processing software. Datacap automates image and data entry, such as invoices, tax documents, etc. The terms of this deal were also not disclosed, though it highlights IBM’s drive to expand services around the cloud. From the company’s released statement,

“Transforming the way organizations do business requires not only a powerful and flexible technology platform to accommodate the wide range of business requirements, challenges and goals, but also a deep understanding of the processes of the industries in which our clients operate,” said Ron Ercanbrack, VP of Enterprise Content Management for IBM. “We’ve chosen to make Datacap’s approach the foundation of IBM’s document capture strategy. Datacap’s approach to image capture, using sophisticated business rules management, sets it above the rest in the industry and provides the most complementary capabilities for IBM.”


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