Technology Road Map – 2012 and Beyond
By Buck Gentry
Greetings from Nashville!
The Technology Conference for CPA’s held annually in Nashville is always one of my favorite events – not to mention I get continuing education credits! The general sessions are up to date and forward thinking on general technology issues affecting CPA’s and financial professionals with specific breakout sessions focused on industry, consulting or public practice management.
The Conference has been coordinated and presented by a group of CPA’s and consultants, K2 Enterprises since the Conference was 1st held in the 1990’s. They are the definitive experts and all-knowing source of knowledge as far as I am concerned and I take their opinions and observations to heart. I have been to the National Conference a couple of times and the sessions and materials are even more ramped – highly recommended. See more on K2E at www.k2e.com .
Randy Johnston has always kicked off the Conference or ended it with his Tech Update. Some notes on Randy’s observations this year follow.
This year is going to be a year with many hardware changes and upgrades. Pent up demand will drive purchasing and hardware upgrades to take advantage of efficiencies, speed and cost effective technologies. Be wary of buying hardware that is already out of date (even if it is only 6 months old). Intel has released a new series of processors, their Intel Core Series – i7 being the flagship product. New “Quantum Dot” monitor technologies are on the horizon replacing OLED displays which will be brighter and use less energy. Touch screens are slow to market but will come.
UPS’ do not seem to be doing the job. We all trust that the power source and protection are there, but the units do fail over time. We should replace our UPS’ every time we change the hardware they are protecting, and at the very least every 5 years. They could actually damage your servers if not operating properly.
The discussion continues about where to back-up your data. In many cases your data may actually be safer in the cloud as our staff need for data access remotely increases. For many small and medium sized businesses, a basic backup appliance may be a good fit. These solutions are stable and user friendly while addressing many issues in your disaster recovery plan (you have a plan, right?). Look at the NetRescue X Business Recovery System.
Browsers are going to change because of HTML security risks. Here comes HTML 5 to address these risks. As a result all web sites will have to be rebuilt in the next 2 years because of massive changes. A new generation of browsers is becoming available. Internet Explorer 9 is already out but deemed unstable!
Did you know about these printing cost savings tips? Save toner by changing fonts. The University of Wisconsin saved $10,000 by setting a font policy and changing default fonts for new software upgrades and rollouts. Most of you know by now that on average you still have 40% of the original ink capacity left when your low toner light warning first comes on.
This generation of hardware purchases may very well be the last cycle of hardware purchasing. New strategies will lead us to stop buying hardware on a 3 year rotation after this next round. IT engineers are highly threatened by these changes when approached and see movement to the cloud as threatening. Soon there will not be enough work for purely hardware fix and software loading skills sufficient to provide a full time job for someone.
Since being introduced 2 years ago to Google’s FREE suite of products for online e-mail, calendaring and contacts I continue to move more functionality to Google’s cloud based platform. Being semi-self-employed I suffer from the same challenges as most trying to secure data while making it accessible to me wherever I am on whatever device I am using. Currently, tools exist and work well enough to sync data between your Outlook .pst file data and Google Apps. The online functionality is somewhat basic, but who’s using pivot tables for their Christmas lists anyway? I would suggest using the Google apps and tools for a non-profit committee or event, youth league team coordination and other basic communication and sharing needs to begin with. This will involve others using the tool and give you experience without the fear of damaging sensitive data or accidentally exposing your data to the world.
About Buck Gentry
In addition to his strong technology expertise, Buck runs our Healthcare practice. He also has experience running and selling a successful enterprise, providing him with deep exposure to the demands of the business life cycle.
He was previously Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer for a rapid growth IT services firm where he managed the human resource and infrastructure necessary to support better than 3000% growth over 14 years.
Buck has also served as Chief Financial Officer for several medical facilities among other roles, after starting his career with KPMG. Buck is a Certified Public Accountant (inactive), member of the AICPA and holds a BS in Accounting from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
About CFO2Biz
CFO2Biz, a division of Bean Box Holdings, Inc, provides “on-demand” comprehensive services, including executive level financial expertise to emerging and established organizations in a wide variety of sectors. CFO2Biz drives value by allowing you to run your business, while we do the math. We have offices in Nashville, Chattanooga and Knoxville. We can be found on the web at www.cfo2.biz or call us toll free at 1-855-CFO-2BIZ