Web accounting service

What do you get when leaders of software and Web kingdoms battle to serve small businesses? Unexpected bedfellows can be the result, as with today"s Google-Intuit alliance. The search king is partnering with the maker of QuickBooks, the most popular small-business finance software, to allow small companies to manage their funds and product publicity in one place. You"ll see the logos for Google and QuickBooks cozy up to serve online marketing for modest-sized businesses of up to a few hundred employees--a base of customers that has been slow to embrace a Web presence. The announcement pits the Google-Intuit duo against Microsoft, which revealed last week that its Office Accounting 2007 app will integrate with eBay, so you"ll be able to manage auctions without opening a Web browser. ***

A team of researchers at software maker SAP is studying how to make the company's line of business applications easier to use and modify, an effort within the company known by the code name Project Vienna. Project Vienna is one of the driving forces behind many technology initiatives, including a new software architecture dubbed NetWeaver, that the company has launched over the past year or so, SAP spokesman Bill Wohl said on Friday. The research project has been underway for more than a year, and the work coming out of it should find its way into SAP's software products this year, Wohl said. He remained vague about what it actually plans to deliver and when, but said Web services technology will figure prominently. ***

Offering some of the first statistics on how consumers spend online, NextCard today released a new index based on the monthly transactions of about 100,000 NextCard Internet Visa cardholders. The release of Internet credit card issuer NextCard's Index comes just as online measurement firm Media Metrix said today that it would partner with BizRate to provide more comprehensive data on online shoppers--facts and figures that Internet merchants are demanding to help them better target consumers. The NextCard Index is based on the number of actual online purchases, rather than page views or site visits, and will be published regularly at the site, as well as by The Industry Standard and Yahoo Internet Life. ***