Atlassian Founder Cannon-Brookes: The Cloud-Accounting War Is Going To Be An Epic Battle

Alex Heber for Business Insider Australia writes:  A war is being waged between cloud-based accounting providers MYOB, Intuit’s Quickbooks Online and upstart Xero as they race to secure small business market share.

Last month Xero CEO Rod Drury poked the bears when he said: “It’s game on with Intuit in the US.” 

At Sydstart today, Atlassian founder Mike Cannon-Brookes weighed in saying while he’s a “huge Xero fan… they’ve got a massive fight there.”

“MYOB guys are not silly, they’ve got a huge install base and are coming back at them. Who wins that fight in the long term, it’s going to be a nice epic battle,” he said.

“But what’s interesting is I think people would’ve written off MYOB two years ago, one year ago and said they have no chance as the incumbent with an install base.”

Pointing to Microsoft’s sustained success as an example of what could be ahead he said “Having an install base of customers makes a big difference.”

With an estimated 70% of small and medium businesses using an accountancy software package, Australia’s small business market is substantial. IBISworld valued it at more than $1 billion. 

But the insights into the economy and small business market cloud-based accounting services have the potential to draw on highlights just how big the data play could be.