All of us come into contact with many different types of software and sometimes we think or lead to believe it is from the company we are dealing with, but in reality the company we are dealing with contracts the software from another company. If you consider the home you live in, someone provided the plumbing and electrical features which are usually behind a wall, but if you find out who they are it is possible to find opportunities which you never really considered before.

In an article from Reuters, Intuit known for its small business accounting and do it yourself (DIY) tax filing software (TurboTax) announced it is acquiring Mailchimp for about $12 billion in cash and stock. The company says it will use cash plus new debt of about $5 billion. Last year Intuit bought Credit Karma for $7 billion.

Mailchimp is based in Atlanta and operates a marketing platform for small and mid-sized businesses. Mailchimp has more than 12 million clients globally, with half of its $800 million in revenue coming from outside the US.

Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi believes there is incredible power in combining the customer data and the purchase data and we can put the power of data in our customer’s hands.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, recently the writer had some insights into a political campaign and they used MailChimp’s services. We all use services, but we all do not ask the next questions are the company publicly traded and would they make a good investment? When you look for your investments, examine what services you use (for you have good reasons for using the services) and then start your homework is this something I can and should invest in? Sometimes the answer is yes, sometimes no but if you are a user, then others can be a user to. If it turns out to be a good investment, then you can easily determine how you continually like or do not like the services and generally you are not alone in your thinking.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.