Comment on Microsoft’s attempted merger with Intuit by S.M. Oliva

I recently covered Intuit/Quicken history on my own blog. One piece of additional context is there was an earlier Antitrust Division action that set the stage for Microsoft's thwarted takeover. In April 1993, Intuit got into a bidding war with Chipsoft, the original developers of "TurboTax," over a third company, MECA Software, which then published the number-two personal finance and tax preparation programs, respectively.

While Scott Cook may have been a lovable guy, his co-founder Tom Proulx was much more of a Steve Jobs-Bill Gates type. He pushed Cook into bidding for MECA with an eye towards eventually acquiring both it and Chipsoft to create his own personal finance and tax juggernaut. The MECA board ended up accepting the Chipsoft bid, but it was vetoed by the Antitrust Division as it didn't want one company effectively controlling the PC tax software market.

This left Cook and Proulx to decide whether they should try to acquire either Chipsoft or MECA. Proulx actually preferred MECA because he believed their tax software was better. But Cook ultimately went with Chipsoft since it had the better management and infrastructure to support what was then considered a fairly complicated product in tax software.

Cook ended up giving up the CEO's chair not long after in favor of someone favored by their venture capital backer. It was that CEO who then basically provoked Gates into making a bid for Intuit by purchasing the company that made the checks used by "Microsoft Money."