Opportunities for developers in the cloud continue to multiply. Today Intuit provided yet another great example of this trend with the announcement that the company is increasing its investment to more tightly integrate the Intuit Partner Platform with Windows Azure.  This will provide developers and channel partners the tools to deliver solutions that reach the millions of people that use QuickBooks and other Intuit financial software.

This move has a few really exciting opportunities for developers. 

• Simplified Process: If you are already writing QuickBooks based solutions, targeting the cloud just got easier. Intuit will soon release version 2.0 of Intuit’s Windows Azure SDK for Intuit Partner Platform, providing support for one-click publishing & authentication of federated IPP and Intuit Anywhere apps hosted on Windows Azure.
• Reduced costs: Most developers want to focus on building innovative apps, rather than dealing with the infrastructure costs that prohibit these apps from reaching market quickly. Using Windows Azure means there are no up-front expenses and developers pay only for the resources they use.
• Expanded reach: For small business developers, the ability to expand your reach is just as important as the ability develop a quality app. Developers looking to expand the solutions to reach small and medium businesses have a well-established channel along with a terrific and easy way to build the apps that they envision for their users. Intuit’s 26 million and growing SMB customers represent a great opportunity to provide value added services.

Whether you are already working with Intuit, or you are a software developer looking for new markets, the expanded partnership between Microsoft and Intuit is worth exploring. Check out Intuit’s Alex Chriss’ blog for a deeper dive into the investments Microsoft and Intuit are making together.