Xero says it now has more than 400,000 users of its low-cost cloud-based accounting application. That means it has added 29,000 since the second quarter ended on September 30, an increase of 7.8 percent. By comparison, Intuit had 739,000 QuickBooks Online users when its first quarter ended on October 31, up from 683,000 when the fourth quarter ended on July 31, an 8.3-percent increase.

Infor has disclosed the price it paid for its fall acquisition of Saleslogix, the cloud-based CRM hot potato. The product, now called Infor CRM, was purchased for $30.1 million. In reporting its results for the second quarter ended October, the software company said it recorded goodwill of $18.2 million for the Saleslogix assets it acquired from Swiftpage so we pretty much have an idea of the value carried on Swiftpage's books.

Intuit's decision to allow accountants sell its QuickBooks products stemmed from watching the success Xero had with that method. "The thing we learned from them [Xero] was their partnership with the accountants as a sales channel," said Jerry Natoli, Intuit's VP of corporate finance and treasurer, said during a webcast this week from a presentation at Barclays Global Technology Conference