http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/03/31/intuit-salesforce-com-team-up-to-target-small-businesses/

As a QuickBooks and Salesforce developer I found this article very interesting. I can't wait to see the level of integration that will be offered. But I have to say, if Salesforce wants to target small businesses, it wouldn't hurt to open up the API and allow us to expose web services in the Professional Edition. Most companies that pay less than $200/user (one time) for their accounting software (or even $3000 for 5-user QB Enterprise) don't to want to pay an extra $3600/year for 5 Salesforce users just so they can use a custom application. Yet many of these companies do need custom work done in Salesforce and need that data to integrate with QB. Which leaves me with a good prospect that I can't win. Actually I have managed to get enough SF Enterprise clients to keep food on the table, but it breaks my heart to tell other prospects that what they want simply can't be done. 

Fortunately for these prospects, there are plenty of good CRM systems out there that do integrate with QB out of the box. But none of them has anywhere near all the programming features of SF.

Also, I have to wonder if Intuit and/or Salesforce are breaking their own rules with this joint venture. We will not be amused if SF opens up the API for this new bundled offering, and leaves the rest of us locked out. Similarly, Intuit has quite a few resrictions on connecting to QB data hosted on their servers.

There are a few other off-the-shelf products out there that integrate QB and SF, but I don't know if they're also limited to Enterprise and Unlimited, or have found a way around that. And as I've learned from experience (actually trying to push prospects into these solutions), they aren't for everybody, either due to subscription costs, implementation costs, or limitations on customization.

So, PLEASE Salesforce, consider opening up Professional Edition to Apex, or coming up with a fee structure that works better for small businesses!