Yesterday Intuit announced that it had signed up more than 50,000 accountants as paid members of its QuickBooks ProAdvisor® Program.

The program provides training, software, technical support, and other resources to  tax and accounting practitioners using QuickBooks financial software. (And it provides Intuit a recurring revenue stream easily topping $25 million!)

When asked about the proportion of "certified" advisors (i.e. passed a test), compared to the total, an Intuit spokesperson answered "about half to two-thirds." These are impressive numbers -- they've managed to separate real dollars from 50,000 accountants & real time from approximately 30,000 of them! Quite an accomplishment. Obviously they've something to offer the profession.

Oh, BTW, this strategy has helped them garner a market share in excess of 94 percent in the face of a blistering Microsoft marketing campaign.