So the $288 Million verdict still looms (link to article). The most important aspect of this verdict is that they would have to stop selling their MS Word product come October 1st (Today)….and my guess is that no retailers flinched a muscle thinking they would actually pull them off the shelves. Later Microsoft was awarded a delay due to the harm it would cause the company long term and popular thought is that this case will also be tossed.

Detail Forgotten
So……what does this really mean? People are sue happy? Yes. But the more compelling aspect is that MS is on public trial. While a jury may be found lacking the skills needed to make a ruling on a IP issue they do represent a popular notion – that the public just doesn’t like them anymore. Their the game favorite and everyone roots for the underdog, it’s the American way. They are one of the go to business success stories in the last 100 years, however what they have working against them is that other future success stories stand on the notion that they fall, and fall hard to competition. When we tell stories of success it presupposes others’ failures, directly or indirectly. To become the market leader you must overtake. To become the new way of doing things you must replace the old way of doing things.

We are THINKING PEOPLE WHO CARE and we ALWAYS ACT IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF OUR CLIENTS. We achieve this because we live by the following performance standards:

1. We deliver exceptional, personalized service as measured by an increased client delight index assessed every six months at client advisory boards
2. Our turnaround standards are 14 days for the completion of work (or as committed to with the client for larger projects), 24 hours for returning emails and 4 hours for returning phone calls
3. We meet with all of our premium clients at their premises at least twice a year
4. We are proactive in determining our clients’ needs; all of our clients are invited annually to complete a financial assessment
5. We provide all clients with the option to receive a fixed price before the work is started on all jobs, no matter how large or small
6. We have an innovative culture; at least 25% of work revenue each year is derived from new services introduced to clients
7. We have a culture of continuous learning. We believe that the secret to success is the acquisition of new skills, the application of those new skills to assist our clients, which then motivates us to acquire even more new skills.

• Real Time Collaboration – Emailing documents in circles, going through VPNs, and using thumb drives are examples of how data USED to move. Sure it still moves like that, however it has been proven that is not the most efficient or secure way of doing things and these college kids have seen it implemented on a mass level. Try telling them it can’t be done in a firm and you will get a blank stare.
• Anytime Anywhere Access – Internet as you know is the life blood to this whole conversation. These students seem to live in a connected state and they (and most of us by now) have now ingrained internet access into their lives. Home, work, cafes, parks, campus, phones, etc – they have rewired their lives in efforts to find a wire to the internet. They can smell the internet!
• Easy – We all know what easy technology is right? It just works. When you click it does what you expected it to do. When you try something for the first time you don’t have to read a ‘HELP’ section because you can just feel your way around. That is easy technology, and while it’s still not the norm, it is becoming the standard of those who gain market share.
• Fun – yes I said fun. Colleges are producing technology geeks in droves! People who have not only intertwined technology into their daily lives in order to get work done but also ones who go home and get right back on the computer to discover, share, and learn about the world and their friends.

To sum up: These college kids are what’s being called ‘digital natives’ and while that is important to know & understand that phrasing it’s more important that the non-digital natives are not the ‘digital naive’. Merging mindsets, not displacing or replacing, but merging will lead to a culture that is headed in the right direction.

Google Education Link

Outsourcing taboo?

Mention “outsourcing” in the accounting community and the first thing that comes to mind is sending tax preparation to India. To some that is a good thought, yet many others have an immediate and negative reaction.

However, since the invention of fire… oh, and the abacus… CPAs, themselves, have successfully convinced businesses that outsourcing their accounting and tax compliance functions is a good thing:

“Take advantage of our experts.”
“We do this all day long.”
“We have the credentials.”
“It’s too risky to do it on your own.”

These are all good points, and I agree completely – hence I use an accountant, and thus my own company uses a CPA firm to do its taxes. We couldn’t possibly compete with our CPA’s experience and, most importantly, I couldn’t do my day-job if I tried.

The paper-based to Internet-based transition is a perfect example of outsourcing’s advantages. As with tax research, technologies of all kinds are following suit. It’s pervasive. Software is being web-enabled. Servers are being virtualized. Networks are moving to the cloud (see Jason Conger’s article Is Cloud Computing just a fancy name for Virtualization?). And the younger generations are thankful for it. They get it. They want it. And they don’t understand why we’re resistant to the change.

What is the cloud?

Firms today are moving toward the inevitable – the cloud – a model where technology help desk, hardware, software, and management can be completely outsourced. No more servers, fewer IT people, improved productivity and more time to focus on the business.

If India just popped into your mind, you can rest easy. Few, if any, US-based hosting providers are opting to offshore their IT talent, so we needn’t worry about our precious client data traversing the globe to lands far far away. Plus, learning about the provider’s operations is a straightforward piece of the due diligence process.

Remember when the “web” became the catchy new term for the up-and-coming Internet? Well the “cloud” lives on the web and it’s the new hip way to refer to a cornucopia of outsourced web-based technologies. The cloud is best defined as a “pay as you go computing web-infrastructure, leveraged for economies of scale.” You will often hear the cloud referred to as SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), PaaS (Platform-as-a-Service), and even IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service). Wikipedia is a great resource for learning more about each.

What can be put in the cloud?

All of your software will eventually live in the cloud- tax, practice management, engagement/trial balance, document management, QuickBooks™/Peachtree™, the aforementioned tax research, Microsoft Office™ collaboration tools (email, shared calendars, tasks). Nearly everything will go into the cloud; it’s just a matter of time.

You’d be surprised how many firms have already moved there. Small firms with two employees, large firms with hundreds of employees and everything in between. Multi-office firms and firms who need remote access are especially good candidates because everything is securely accessible via the web… from the cloud.

What does this mean for all of us?

In short, all of our technology will eventually live in the cloud, and we will be better for it. This transition will allow us to focus on what we do best in our businesses, leaving the rest for people who focus, and are experts, on what we don’t care to do or are not good at. Technology is a cornerstone to most of our businesses in terms of success — we can’t live without it. But ask yourself why you started your business to begin with. If ‘technology management’ or ‘technology services’ isn’t core to your firm’s purpose and mission, then it likely falls squarely into the ‘headache’ category. Aside from the distractions related to doing technology well, there are inherent risks to consider. Security, reliability, performance, compatibility, redundancy, and obsolescence are just a few that come to mind.

As a profession, accounting firms can no longer be a pioneer on the outsourced technology/hosting front. The good news is that many firms have made the transition successfully and they’re asking themselves why they didn’t go there sooner. Their client data is far more secure in a SAS-70, type II data center than it ever was in their closet at the office. These firms now live in a world where they spend little, if any, time planning for technology upgrades or future IT expenditures, working on IT staffing issues or fretting over security concerns.

Just as in most successful transitions to outsourced services in the past, we are much better off after the change if we can just get ourselves to start the move in that direction. Of course, there’s always the alternative of walking uphill, in the snow, barefoot. Think fancy three-ringed binders on beautifully ornate book shelves.

By the way, has anyone seen the tax binder containing Revenue Code KGF 6386 Z9 C644 1979? It’s not where it should be!  Hello?

• RAID – make sure that your servers have a RAID configuration on both the OS and Data partitions. For example, if you have a File & Print server, you would want to have your OS partition in a RAID configuration, as well as your Data partition in a RAID configuration.
• Redundant power supply – this one is fairly self explanatory. Redundant power supplies are a fairly standard option on new servers these days. However, if your server is a couple of years old and does not have redundant power, it would be something worth looking into.
• Dual gigabit NICs – gigabit NICs are usually a given on a server, however dual NICs are not always as common. Xcentric always implements dual NICs on servers. You can run these in a failover mode or as load-balancing.
• Gigabit switches – you want to have at least all of your core network servers connected to a gigabit switch to reduce any bottlenecks.
• Server warranty – it is always in your best interest to have enterprise-grade production servers that are covered with some sort of next business day service & support contract. You may have lasted the previous 3 years without one, but that is a big risk to keep taking.
• Server room- Computer equipment may look tough on the exterior; however, it is very sensitive to the environment that they operate in. The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) recommends a temperature range of 20–25 °C (68–75 °F) and a humidity range of 40–55% with a maximum dew point of 17°C as optimal for data center conditions, according to their “Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments”.
• Power  source- A single server can draw up to 300 Watts of power, which means special planning must be made to supply uninterrupted (backed up) power. Datacenters and server rooms should not share power circuits with other high-power consumers such as copiers, refrigerators or air conditioners. Some battery backup units also require special outlets to be installed from dedicated power circuits.
• Server hardware- Only Tier One hardware should be used for the production environment. Your entire firm has its lifeline routed throughout this hardware and our best practice is to use either Dell, HP, IBM, or severs of this caliber.
• Server patches and updates- Operating systems are full of security flaws and bugs that need to be patched on a regular basis. If these critical updates are not installed, the system can be vulnerable to attacks and data can be compromised.
• Remote access card (optional) – Dell has a card called a “DRAC” (Dell Remote Access Card), and HP has something similar. These are virtually like another NIC, however,  they allow you to gain access to the server, even if it is turned off or inaccessible via  the network. This is a very valuable tool.

If you have any questions regarding infrastructure best practices, feel free to contact us at 678.297.0066 or support@xcentric.com.

A little background: our previous home mortgage was with Wells Fargo and we were pretty happy with them. So I just figured, what the heck, I’ll give them a call again. I locked in a decent rate on August 2nd. Just under the 60 day mark before closing. Things were good. The rate was a little higher from what I had seen a couple months before, but I just rolled with it.

Fast forward to last Friday. In talking with my Realtor, it was looking like our house was not going to be ready in time for the original closing day. It was going to be pushed back about a week or so. Not horrible, but still delayed. This brought to mind my 60 day period for the locked-in rate. If closing got pushed back more than a couple of days, my rate could expire.

Now, I haven’t really heard from Wells Fargo since I first locked in my rate. Yes, I received some documents in the mail to sign, and I have emailed with some questions, but it usually takes a couple days to get an answer. Nobody has reached out to me through the process. So when my Realtor emailed them to ask about extending the lock-in period, and she didn’t get any response, that pretty much did it for me. I had to follow up, and one of them replied, saying that there would be a fee to extend the period.

This gave me a way out – since I was not happy with the service and I felt like they could have waived the fee if they *really* wanted to. It was still not too late to go with a different lender. Yesterday I knew that I needed to make some calls. I did a couple google searches, felt a little overwhelmed,then it hit me… YELP!

My friend Roy has recently opened my eyes (again) to the power and usefulness of Yelp. I have been reviewing and bookmarking all sorts of restaurants. But, this time I wasn’t looking for a new coffeeshop, or a great taqueria. Yesterday I needed a lender. The first one on my Yelp results was a lender with (3) 5-star reviews. Granted, I know only 3 reviews is not that many, but all 3 of them were fairly substantial. So, I called them up. I gave the receptionist my short-story and then she asked “how did you hear about us?”. I said “I actually found you guys on Yelp”. For a second I was thinking to myself “she is gonna think I am a nut”. But no, she responded as if it happens all them time. And, she then passed me on to the Loan Officer who is mentioned on Yelp as being awesome. Long story short, I locked in an even lower rate than before, and I am getting great, local service.

Is your accounting firm on Yelp? Did you know that they have free tools and allow for businesses to claim a page and create a business account? Check it out at http://biz.yelp.com/

If you are interested in reading more about Yelp and the business side, you might want to read 9 Myths about Yelp or these getting started suggestions from their blog.

• Find focus – Keep your goals and objectives at the front of your mind.  Review them often and don’t stop trying to improve.  Maintain ‘movement’ in your organization and don’t get consumed with day-to-day decisions.
• Mix it up – Trying new things can create excitement in your organization.  Poll your employees for how you could do things better.  Explore new sources of potential revenue and experiment with bottom-up processes to generate ideas and innovations.  I read of a software company that used its employees for ideas and ended up coming up with one idea that largely contributed to the company being profitable this year.
• Boost confidence (and trust) - Start by encouraging your employees and other co-workers.  Show a sincere interest in their lives, and take time to learn their future goals.  Trust should be the cornerstone of your organization and your leadership style.   Make sound decisions and create clarity around why those decisions are important to the organization.
• Communication, communication, communication – It’s hard to over communicate in an organization.  Gossip and rumors can easily become the truth inside an organization if there’s an absence of other information.  Communicate openly, honestly and authoritatively.  Keep your employees up to date with company events and plans, even plans you don’t think they would be interested in.