09-18-2009

The next generation bends over

Jason Fried over at 37 Signals is not to thrilled bout Intuit’s acquisition of Mint

Mint was a key leader of the next generation of game changers. And now it’s property of Intuit — the poster-child for the last generation. What a loss. Is that the best the next generation can do? Become part of the old generation? How about kicking the shit out of the old guys? What ever happened to that?

Its difficult for innovation to come from within a company that is set in its ways, so I can see this as positive move for Intuit. But from Mint’s perspective I do question the move as it feels that they are at risk of losing what made them special in the first place.

The full rant – The next generation bends over – 37signals.

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One Comment to “The next generation bends over”

vbrunetti September 21st, 2009 at 3:58 pm

It’s easy and understandable to feel the us vs. them mentality but think of what Mint gains. The way smaller agencies can’t compete with the media -buying power of the big dogs, by being part of Intuit, Mint might be able to leverage their (combined) market presence to offer better deals with the in-application offers Mint provides. Let me be clear, I do think it is extremely difficult for a young/agile/small organization to change the culture of a larger/lumbering one. And this all might not work out. But successful mergers have worked in the past with a dynamic similar to this. Think of Adobe acquiring Macromedia. Macromedia needed the leverage Adobe could provide to fend off competing offerings from MSFT and others. We’ll just have to see how the two cultures mix and whether or not the specialness of Mont can survive the often toxic atmosphere the old-guard can have.

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