Intuit will use third parties to provide user choice, according to ProSeries product manager, Julie Kozloski. "We will be making it so can integrate with several different companies so users can pick," she says. Instead of Intuit's saying "'Here buy this solution' we will say 'Go to third parties,'" Kozloski comments.

Kozloski adds that portals are among the most-requested features requested by ProSeries users.

The company is apparently considering opening up the application programming interfaces for its software or might provide a software development kit in order to work with third parties. Mary Kroenung, the Lacerte product manager, acknowledged Intuit is moving towards offering portals, but had no specific information to release.

However, she notes, "We hope to have something to announce soon."

Among the applications likely to be targeted for cloud development is document management, which Kozloski cites as one of packages that is likely to be the subject of work with developers.