10/27/97 SCOTT COOK

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SCOTT COOK
Chairman, Intuit Inc.
When Intuit Inc. Chairman Scott D. Cook got into the personal-finance software business 13 years ago, only about 100,000 people were balancing their checkbooks on a personal computer. Today, that number is close to 13 million--and 10 million of them use Intuit's Quicken program. Now, the guy who popularized the binary checkbook is trying to bring financial services to cyberspace.
In fact, Cook is betting the company on it. Intuit, which has $600 million in revenues, plans on ending its reliance on retail software sales. Instead, it's offering a broad array of services delivered via the Internet. This month, as part of a relaunch of its two-year old Web site, www.quicken.com, Intuit is offering a home- mortgage finder service that allows computer users to compare loans from a half-dozen of the largest lenders. This winter, it will offer auto insurance. And ultimately, every Intuit product either will be wholly online or have an online component.
The 45-year-old Cook, who learned the ins and outs of mass appeal as a Procter & Gamble Co. product marketer, built his software franchise on making checkbook, tax, and small-business accounting programs that are especially easy to use. On the Web, intuitive navigation is still an important component. But Cook believes it will take more than that to coax tens of millions of people to pay bills, invest in stocks, and arrange loans online. The crucial factor is trust. And Cook hopes Intuit can gain the trust of consumers by offering comparative shopping--as well as plenty of sound editorial guidance.
''We're the customer champion for financial decisions,'' says Cook. ''We want them to look at quicken.com as the objective source for making the most of their money.'' Says Roger Servison, a managing director at Fidelity Investments, an Intuit partner: ''There's no question whether [Intuit is] friend or foe.'' With Microsoft Corp., Servison adds, ''you're not quite sure.''
Cook understands that being the middleman will not work unless Intuit can offer consumers a broad sampling of investment and loan choices. ''Only in the Soviet Union did they figure people didn't want choice--and that didn't work very well,'' quips Cook. Now, it's his mission to transform Intuit into the ultimate online capitalist tool.
By Steve Hamm in San Francisco

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