Most movements within the highly competitive arena of property management software come from within the industry with larger players snatching up smaller ones, generalized companies picking up specialized ones. It is rare to see major players in the larger commercial sphere move into a narrower, more focused market niche.

That's what happened when a few years ago, Intuit, developer of leading business and financial management tools such as Quickbooks and TurboTax, acquired long-time vendor MRI. Intuit now includes MRI in its new umbrellas of real estate services called Intuit Real Estate Solutions. A veteran of heated market wars with Microsoft and its Money product line, Intuit complements MRI with extensive accounting, financial and managerial expertise. The company also provides the extensive financial and technical resources of an internationally recognized provider of financial management services.

MRI Residential, Intuit's core multifamily product, is a full-featured property management application that has successfully integrated sophisticated web-based services.

Recently, Post Properties adopted Intuit's MRI Residential package to manage their portfolio. During their selection process, Post at five key criteria critical to their business operations: functionality, vendor service and support, cost, technology architecture and vision. Post involved a cross-section of representatives of each of its business units and departments in the evaluation of software solutions. In the end, they selected Intuit.

"Intuit outperformed their competitors and demonstrated their product would us achieve our business objectives. In addtion, the multitude of favorable references from clients gave us the confidence they would be around for the long term," said Carl Bonner, senior vice president of IT at Post.

Bonner sees MRI Residential as the hub for Post's entire property operating software environment, enabling automation and improved access to data across the board.