IT Predictions for 2010

Source: Possibilities for CPA Firm Leaders

Following is a complete blog entry by Rita Keller, reproduced with permission.

Yes, it's that time of year, already. Time to look at Roman Kepczyk's 2010 technology predictions (and his comments on his 2009 predictions) in CPA Technology Advisor.

Here's the list with just the titles and my brief comments. Click here to read the entire article with Roman's expert opinions.

Cloud Computing - He explains SaaS and cloud computing. As I talked with over 1,000 CPA firm leaders this year, I still found many who really did not know a thing about this topic.

Windows 7 Success - Upgrading workstations that have XP is not worth the effort. Firms will buy new ones that come with Windows 7.

Office 2007 Becomes Standard - As Roman notes, firms must remember they make their revenue from tax and audit production; so the more stable the environment, the more profitable they will be.

Google Continues Being a Thorn for Microsoft

Apple iPhone Inroads

Virtualization Becomes Standard

Web Backup Leads to Disaster Recovery

Portal Standard - I have seen lots of progress in this area, although some firms say their clients do not use the portal and others say clients absolutely love it. It could probably be how it was introduced and "sold" to the clients as a security topic. Nevada and Massachusetts have passed laws making it more difficult to email a tax return.

Laptops as Terminals

Scanning Boost - While providers have done a good job of improving their products, the economy situation has pushed front-end scanning technologies to the "would be nice" category instead of the "gotta have" category. It's moving forward, but the automatic input technology will not be as effective as promised until 2011.

CPA firm leaders, I hope you read the entire article so you can at least talk-the-talk.

"Never make predictions, especially about the future."--Casey Stengel

From Possibilities for CPA Firm Leaders, the blog of Rita Keller, president of Keller Advisors, LLC, [email protected], December 9, 2009, "ROMAN'S TOP TEN 2010 IT PREDICTIONS AND 2009 RESULTS " Visit http://cpamanagement.blogspot.com.