The National IT Conference and Showcase for Accountants

June 12-13, 2006 - Michael Burns will be chairing this conference, which is jam packed with the most important technologies impacting accountants in public practice and industry. The program will appeal to decision makers looking to understand what technology has to offer their business or practice. It will also appeal to the "technology junkies" who want to learn more about emerging technologies. You will hear from a variety of experts, including vendors and developers, solution providers, independent industry experts, and your peers.

Click here for the conference brochure.

Vancouver Financial Technology Show

June 7, 2006 - Michael Burns will present a seminar entitled "Independent Comparison of Accounting and ERP Systems". During the 1st half of the seminar, Michael will discuss key differentiators of some of the systems exhibiting at the show including Microsoft Dynamics GP, Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Microsoft Small Business Financials, Multiview, QuickBooks, SYSPRO, SunSystems and SYSPRO. The second 1/2 will be an interactive panel discussion with the vendors on the hot seat. Michael will ask them some tough questions and then will invite the audience to ask their questions directly to the panel.

2006 PSA (Professional Services Automation) Survey

May 2006 from CAmagazine written by Michael Burns - Check out our survey that includes Abak, Adagio, BalaBoss, BST, Business First, CaseWare, Corecon, Envision, Epicor, Exact Globe. Jovaco, Maconomy, Microsoft Dynamics, NetSuite, OpenAir, OroTimesheet, Project InVision, Projector, ResQ, QuickArrow, Sage, SunSystems, Tenrox, and TPS.

Rating the popular high-end, mid-market and small business accounting solutions

April 18, 2006 from ITBusiness.ca and written by Michael Burns - "For the last two years, CAmagazine has conducted a Canadian customer survey of accounting and ERP systems. The survey solicits responses on how customers rate their systems, developers and implementation partners. It also includes questions about return on investment and future plans.

There is often some confusion as to the differences between an accounting system and an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. I define an ERP system as one that automates business processes across most, if not all, departments within a company. With that definition, even a system like QuickBooks or Simply Accounting can be considered an ERP system for a small company...

There were 264 surveys completed on a wide spectrum of systems. To compare the systems, each was categorized as either high-end, mid-market or small business. The report only included details for those systems for which at least five customer surveys were completed. This was done to improve the statistical reliability of the results. The high-end products included JD Edwards, Oracle, PeopleSoft and SAP. The mid-market was made up of ACCPAC Advantage, Great Plains, Navision, and SYSPRO. Finally, small business solutions were Adagio, MYOB, QuickBooks and Simply Accounting."

ProClarity: If You Can't Beat 'Em, Buy 'Em

April 13, 2006 from SQL Server Magazine - "Microsoft dramatically shook up the business intelligence (BI) market competitive landscape last week with the acquisition of ProClarity, one of the leading developers of third-party analysis and visualization tools for the Microsoft BI platform. The Microsoft press release emphasizes the compatibility of the two companies' visions. The release features a statement from Bill Baker, general manager of Microsoft Office Business Applications, who says the ProClarity acquisition will help Microsoft "build even more BI capabilities into the Microsoft Office system productivity tools people use every day." And ProClarity CEO Bob Lokken says his company shares "Microsoft's enthusiasm for making BI accessible to all decision maker's within an organization."

Although I haven't reviewed ProClarity's latest market-share data, I know that the company was one of the first third-party providers of tools for the Microsoft BI space and is widely regarded as one of the best BI providers in the market. Microsoft regularly buys small software companies to roll into its own product suites, but it's rare for Microsoft to acquire such a visible, leading player. I've been following the SQL Server space since the product's beginnings (when SQL Server ran on LAN Manager and OS/2), and I can't recall Microsoft ever acquiring a product that has such a significant market share in a mature market segment--at least in the SQL Server space. (I'm sure someone will quickly point out some major event I've missed, and I'll be glad to pass that info along next week!)

I worked with the first release of the ProClarity platform and attended one of the company's earliest partner-training events in the days of SQL Server 7.0. I remember joking with CEO Bob Lokken, "So, when is Microsoft going to buy you?" From the start, ProClarity's offering was strong, especially when compared to the weak Microsoft offerings of the time, which relied on Microsoft Office as a BI front end. In addition, the ProClarity platform did a great job of leveraging Microsoft technology.

The move to acquire the mature ProClarity product raises some interesting questions:
Will Microsoft integrate ProClarity into existing Microsoft tool offerings (i.e., Office), or will ProClarity become a standalone, high-end product? What does this acquisition mean for other third-party BI tool providers? Which companies will be able to compete, and which small tool companies may go out of business?

Microsoft hasn't revealed whether ProClarity's platform will be integrated into the Microsoft BI stack or be consumed by the upcoming Office 2007. But ProClarity Analytics is a best-of-breed product, and Microsoft has made great BI-related strides in the upcoming Office release. So tool choices for Microsoft customers are bound to be varied and rich.

I'm not sure I'd want to be a standalone-tool competitor in the Microsoft BI space. Competition in this arena will be tough given the massive upcoming BI improvements in Office 2007 and the acquisition of ProClarity. I'm sure BI competitors such as Cognos and Business Objects are also keenly interested in this acquisition. Microsoft BI has made enormous strides over the years, and the company has become recognized as a leading player in the BI space. The ProClarity acquisition can only make Microsoft an even stronger player."

Performance Management Spending Nears $23B in 2006

2006 from AMR research - "Enterprise performance management (EPM) spending remains strong in 2006, with nearly $23B planned for software, hardware, labor (internal and external), and integration services. This is according to the results of a detailed survey AMR Research conducted of more than 200 companies across all industry sectors within North America... The following are some trends we uncovered:

Not surprisingly, the dashboard and scorecard segment is on fire—a reflection of the number of inquiries we get from customers about these subjects. BI is also on an upswing, but camps are forming around three types of providers—best of breed, platform vendors, and enterprise application providers. Generally speaking, manufacturers are more strongly aligned with their enterprise application vendors and services firms are more in synch with best-of-breed competitors. Both segments have healthy platform supporters as well. We expect a more competitive market for these software firms in 2006.

Although planning, budgeting, and forecasting products show a slight decline in spending, they are deemed the most strategically important EPM investment in 2006, slightly exceeding the importance of BI. Interestingly, manufacturers mentioned these products much more frequently than services firms. More than half of the firms surveyed indicated they have an operational system in place.

The large decrease in analytic applications and slight decrease in analytic infrastructure are not easily explainable. In fact, it makes us scratch our heads and wonder why since inquiries from customers are veering more into these areas. The biggest impediments companies have in deploying performance management are access to enterprise-wide data and data from customers and suppliers outside the four walls of the firm."

180 View - Some people call it Enterprise Performance Management (EPM). Others call it Corporate Performance Management (CPM) or Business Performance Management (BPM). It would be a lot less confusing if the vendors could agree on the buzzword.

We think the decrease in analytic applications has more to do with confusion as to what it means. In our opinion there is no difference between analytics and business intelligence. However, if you speak with the vendors or do research, you will find differences, which are often difficult to understand. In our research, we did find an article on the difference between analytics and business intelligence as well as the following reader response to the article:

"This article makes a distinction where there should be none. Business intelligence is about delivering "intelligence" to the "business" and it takes many forms, from querying and reporting to OLAP and data mining. The only people who want or need to make these types of distinctions are vendors who need to carve out a market niche by confusing people with new terms for existing processes and technologies." Wayne Eckerson, Director of Research and Services, TDW
For the article and this quote, click here.

Are CFOs Up to Technology Task?

April 27, 2006 from AccountingWEB.com - "Younger accountants, the ones in their 20s and early 30s, seem to be entirely comfortable with using computers and expect to use computers in their work. The older ones, say in their 50s and up, went to school at a time when personal computers were just not around. Unless [the latter] make a special effort to learn how to use them, they are not necessarily comfortable with them,” Canadian-based technology consultant and writer Richard Morochove says in a recent report on the technology services industry portal E-Channel Line, echannelline.com.

Morochove, who has been a featured speaker at accounting software conferences held in the United States in recent years, says he has noticed that when accountants reach senior positions they tend to feel that they do not need to use information technology and applications. He has observed that some CFOs mistakenly take the position of "'let my assistants do the number crunching and I will review their findings.'”

180 View - We think that many CFO's would strongly disagree with Morochove. We also disagree that CFO's need to do the number crunching. But CFO's are missing big opportunities by not embracing some of the technologies available. For example, Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) would give a CFO instant access to information across multiple dimensions with graphical representation at the press of a key or drill down to more detail. Why wait for someone to retrieve information only to find out that more information is required leading to more delay? As well, electronic dashboards are now very popular in accounting and ERP systems and can provide vital information/KPI's in real time as well as drill down to more information.

Microsoft puts money behind Web strategy talk

May 1, 2006 from Yahoo News - "Microsoft is backing up its talk of investing in Web services with cash, months after chairman Bill Gates called the company to arms over an Internet "sea change" in which software and services become delivered over the Web. Next year the company will invest $2 billion more than expected in a variety of technologies, and the clearest goal is to transform its way of doing business on the Web, analysts and investors said...

"We believe Microsoft has been working to implement a strategic vision to leverage some unique advantages and become a player along with Google and Yahoo in the market for online advertising," Sherlund wrote in a note to clients. Microsoft sees paid search as the first test in a larger ongoing competition for Internet ads.

Online advertising continues to win over clients abandoning television, newspapers and other traditional media. Forrester Research projects the online advertising to grow to $26 billion in 2009 from $15 billion now. At the core of Microsoft's software services vision is Windows Live, an advertising funded one-stop shop for Microsoft's web services from e-mail to instant messaging to blogs.

In order to support such a platform, Microsoft is expected to spend heavily for computer servers and data storage. Local media reported earlier this week that Microsoft bought a 75 acre property in central Washington state to build a "server farm" that will hold thousands of data-serving computers.

Merrill Lynch expects Microsoft online unit MSN to get a significant share of an estimated $2.4 billion in additional spending by the company. MSN expenses would increase by $891 million in the upcoming fiscal year, compared with $1.1 billion for Google and $708 million for Yahoo.

Google and Yahoo have become household names, but Microsoft is still larger by far, from a financial perspective. Before the stock fall on Friday Microsoft had a market capitalization of $282 billion and revenue in its latest full fiscal year of $40 billion, while Google had a market cap of $125 billion and revenue of $6.1 billion. Yahoo had a market cap of $47 billion and revenue of $5.3 billion."

180 View - This article comes from a new service offered by Yahoo Technology News. There is some interesting information in this article including the importance of online advertsising (follow the cash...) and the market capitalization of Google, a company that started operations in 1998 with 3 employees.

Why Your Employees Are Losing Motivation

April 10, 2006 from Harvard Business School - "Most companies have it all wrong. They don't have to motivate their employees. They have to stop demotivating them. The great majority of employees are quite enthusiastic when they start a new job. But in about 85 percent of companies, our research finds, employees' morale sharply declines after their first six months—and continues to deteriorate for years afterward. That finding is based on surveys of about 1.2 million employees at 52 primarily Fortune 1000 companies from 2001 through 2004, conducted by Sirota Survey Intelligence (Purchase, New York).
The fault lies squarely at the feet of management—both the policies and procedures companies employ in managing their workforces and in the relationships that individual managers establish with their direct reports...

To maintain the enthusiasm employees bring to their jobs initially, management must understand the three sets of goals that the great majority of workers seek from their work—and then satisfy those goals:

• Equity: To be respected and to be treated fairly in areas such as pay, benefits, and job security. How Management Demotivates
• Achievement: To be proud of one's job, accomplishments, and employer.
• Camaraderie: To have good, productive relationships with fellow employees.

180 View - The best system with the best business practices can't compete with motivation in improving business process.

Windows Boots on a Mac

April 12, 2006 from InfoWorld - "On April 4, a date chosen because April Fools' Day fell on a Saturday, Apple released a freely downloadable beta utility called Boot Camp. Boot Camp has one astonishing, if not bizarre, purpose: To give Intel-based Macs the capability of booting and running Windows XP. It doesn’t surprise me that Windows runs on Macs; that was inevitable, and when Boot Camp was released open sourcers were within two or three device drivers of achieving that goal without Apple’s help. Indeed, the stouthearted crew at onmac.net set up a cash kitty to reward those who solved the problem of Macs’ inability to boot Windows.

Booting Windows XP is the problem that Boot Camp solves. It doesn’t run Windows and OS X side by side. It allows them to coexist on a Mac’s boot drive so that a user can choose to reside in Cupertino or Redmond at startup. To switch OSes, you have to shut down or reboot. This would be too much of a pain if Apple hadn’t automated the setup. You’ll find the technical details in my Enterprise Mac blog, but Apple crafted an ideal approach to dual-booting. At the Worldwide Developers Conference 2005, where the Intel transition was announced, the official company line regarding Windows on the Mac was trotted out: Apple “did nothing specifically to prevent running Windows, but Apple will not support running Windows on Mac systems.”
Apple still won’t claim to support Windows on a Mac, hanging the beta tag and setting a self-destruct timer on the Boot Camp software.

However, Boot Camp will be integrated into Leopard, the next major release of OS X, and interestingly, Boot Camp’s time bomb is set to go off in fall of 2007. Come next fall, either that time limit will be extended or Leopard’s release will make such an extension unnecessary. In any case, Windows on the Mac will likely be supported the way Microsoft supports Linux on Virtual Server: It starts out being something users do at their risk, but when the vendor realizes Linux on Windows, or Windows on Macs, is moving sales, grudging support is phased in.
During a briefing, Boot Camp’s program manager told me that Boot Camp was created to address two groups of prospective Mac buyers: those who had one Windows application they absolutely couldn’t live without, and those who had trepidation about making a buying decision that precluded running Windows. That latter issue is the “I have one desk, I’ll have one PC” objection that’s dogged Apple from the start -- and to which Apple has always responded, “The Mac runs Office.” To be able to say, “The Mac runs Windows,” is a better convincer, and cheaper, too, for those who already own Office for Windows.

There are two other groups whose needs are addressed by Boot Camp. Group Three comprises gamers, developers, and enthusiast/power users who realize that Macs are the best-designed systems on the market but who, on principle or by necessity, won’t buy anything that won’t run the OS of their choice. And then there’s Group Four: Mac users who have talked Windows users into making the switch but can’t follow through on their promise to keep all of their converts’ data intact. Meet the poster boy for Group Four. I’ve been sitting on the iMac I have set aside for my wife, who is a lifelong Windows user, since I received it. Boot Camp gets me off the hook."