Former CCH president Mike Sabbatis has joined RealPage, a Carrollton, Texas-based company, as chief revenue officer.  Sabbatis held the job at CCH from March 2002 through October 2012 when he left in a year of significant changes at the tax and accounting company. RealPage produces SaaS products for the rental housing market.

The last tax season was one of the most turbulent in recent years. But those were last year’s problems and we are already well into the buying season for 2013 tax products, which will be minus the veteran TaxWorks application, However, time moves on and features involving the web, mobile and efiling take center stage for the remaining players.

Intuit's highly publicized use of tax professionals to advise its TurboTax customers has not met the goals of CEO Brad Smith. In the company's recent earnings webcast about financial results for fiscal 2013, Smith said the program would have significant changes for the next tax season. Given the attention that Intuit gave the program, any change would be a significant about face.