Emerging Technologies

One year ago, I wrote about Emerging Technologies with the following introduction: “There are four types of technology:

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  • Technology we use now
  • Technology we have discarded
  • Technology that is about to emerge
  • Technology far away”

As the years go by, these four groupings still classify the never-ending changes that technology delivers to us in new and improved ways. A key question is this: Why should we be interested in what’s next when we are so busy dealing with what needs to be done today?

The answer for tax and accounting professionals is to explore the world of opportunity flowing in every direction, which includes innovative technology. As this fire hose is never turned off, we must set an arbitrary limit on what will be discussed here. More information can always be located doing simple searches, asking friends, and by reading this publication in all of its emerging formats.

Here are the selected areas for this year:

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  • Virtualization
  • Tax document automation
  • Streamlined sales tax
  • Mobile access — smart phones, Gobi, 3G
  • Cloud computing — mesh, etc.
  • Portals

How each of these areas will impact you is to be determined. Some questions are easy; others take more time. The emerging reality is that accountants have to know about technologies — ones they use along with planning for ones they are about to use. Let us know how these technologies impact you during the coming year.

Virtualization
When a specialized computer is needed for a short- or long-term application, you can acquire new computer hardware at new cost. An alternative answer is Virtualization. Virtualization is the software application that enables multiple “virtual computers” to exist within a single hardware component. This capability relies on the use of intelligent software to manage the data flow among servers, storage subsystem and the application.

There are no limitations on what OS can be set up in the guest operating system — VISTA, Windows XP and others can coexist. The advantages evolve from the capability to effectively use the physical computer resources to support greater throughput and speed of execution. Management tools that can handle both physical and virtualized systems are growing. With the depressed economy, demand for savings are forcing companies to take a closer look at how they could take better advantage of what management tools can do.

Randy Johnston wrote in his recent article, Why Virtualization?, “Reliability, greater speed, less expensive, business continuity, test environment, safer to update applications and more. What’s not to love about virtualization?”

A few of the realities about uses of VIRTUAL MACHINES

• Link your computer to almost any application.
• Keep old machines rather than buy and install new.
• Access multiple locations with separate logins.
• Prototype new applications without buying new hardware.
• Isolate applications that do not play well with others in separate virtual machines.
• Move and/or copy one location to another.
• Return to a previous point without having to reinstall the operating system or perform other time-consuming operations trying to remove whatever malware invasion occurred.

Other Information Resources

• “Good Virtualization Requires Good Virtualization Management” by Brent Goodfellow, CPA.CITP, MCSA, MCSE, MCT (www.CPATechAdvisor.com/go/2125)
• “Practicing Safe Internet Experiences” by John Anderson, CPA.CITP, CIA, MCP, MSA (www.CPATechAdvisor.com/go/1851)
• Microsoft Virtualization Products (https://partner.microsoft.com/us/40075647#white)