Intuit

Late last week we told you that the U.S. Justice Department apparently had evidence that Apple, along along with Google, Adobe, Intuit, Pixar, Intel, and Lucasfilms, entered “no-poach” agreements as part of an antitrust investigation from 2010. U.S. District Judge Lucy H Koh made a statement yesterday at the U.S. District Court in San Jose, Calif., confirming the companies must face a lawsuit. According to the report from Bloomberg, Koh said she would allow plaintiffs to re-file their complaint even if an initial request by the defendants to dismiss the claims is granted.  

Judge Koh’s decision yesterday will result in Google and the other companies having to provide a detailed account of the agreements made with other companies. They must also allow lawyers to take depositions. One lawyer representing the plaintiffs, Joseph Saveri, said, “We get to see what really happened,” claiming the case could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. Google provided statements to Bloomberg claiming they have “always actively and aggressively recruited top talent,” while the others have declined to comment.

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It appears the U.S. Justice Department has some solid evidence against companies including Apple, Google, Adobe, Intuit, Pixar, Lucasfilm and Intel.  TechCrunch obtained a document from the DOJ that is now posted to Scribd.  Among the pieces of evidence, include:

The DOJ settled with the six companies, but a class action lawsuit is pending.  The complaint regards entering into non-poach and no bidding war agreements. The above mentioned companies allegedly lowered employee compensation artificially while hindering mobility.

The plaintiffs seek damages for any salaried employee who worked for one of the defendants during a 4-year period in the late 2000s. That means a lot of Silicon Valley tech workers could receive a payout if the defendants lose or settle the case. The civil case will be heard by Judge Koh in San Jose starting January 26th, 2011

The defendants, including Apple, asked the case to be dismissed, stating that the DOJ found “no overarching conspiracy” and that these bilateral agreements were separate.

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Today, Mint.com launched its free iPad application, giving users a more interactive view of their finances. The app combines everything that users love about Mint.com’s online personal financial management tool with popular iPad capabilities, like:

· Tapping charts to drill down on expenses

· Pinching a timeline to see spending over time

· Scrolling through personalized updates of account alerts, bill reminders and advice.

The app was built native to the iPad, so Mint users will see the application run faster and smoother, because it supports features of the newly released iOS 5.

Full release and more iPad screenshots follow:

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Intuit today announced QuickBooks for Mac 2012, the newest version of its accounting software for small businesses, enhanced for OS X Lion. More than fifty new features are part of the release, including better search with keywords and filters, customer and vendor history panels, transaction list, batch online banking transactions, progress invoicing and more. The software goes on sale September 26 as a digital download on the online Intuit store, Amazon.com, Apple’s online store and other outlets, priced at $230 for a single-user license. Boxed copies will hit store shelves on October 9.  Screenshots below.

Premier edition is also available (a Windows-only product), in addition to an add-on for QuickBooks Premier that lets you sync data with Salesforce. QuickBooks also has a cross platform Cloud edition which also shows some promise for Apple users.

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