title: Quickbooks integration: IPP/IDS: can these by used for actual data exchange?
body: <p>Poking around options for integrating an online app with Quickbooks, I've made a lot of headway with QBWC, but it's fairly ugly. From an end user perspective the usability of QBWC is pretty low.</p>
  
  <p>Intuit is now pushing Intuit Partner Platform (IPP) and Intuit Data Services (IDS). I can't quite figure out what these are about:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>Is IPP limited to using Flex, or can it work with existing web apps?</li>
  <li>Are there APIs for actual data exchange? Is it possible to interact with desktop Quickbooks using IPP or IDS?</li>
  <li>If there is sample code, particularly in Python, some pointers would be great.</li>
  </ul>