In its earnings webcast, Inuit CEO Brad Smith commented, "Sage has had very little luck in the cloud", about as aggressive as he gets in talking about competitors. He also said of Xero that "it's kind of difficult to know how many customers they have." Maybe he's like me in wondering if Xero's paying customer count and Intuit's subscribers represent the same thing. In any event, we're seeing the steps being taken by companies trying to bulk up. Earlier this year, Paychex invested in Kashoo and is bringing an online accounting application to market for its payroll customers. Xero allied with Block, which is recommending the product at its stores that provide small business services. The statement by Exact CEO Erik van der Meijden that his company will look for a better way to market Exact One in this country—although it's a higher-end product than the others mentioned here.