Cutting Age Technology: More User-Friendly, Less Gadgetery

K2 Enterprises consultant Randy Johnson forecasted that the upcoming tech trends would include simplicity and virtualization at the AICPA Information Technology Conference in Las Vegas. Johnson said that one-size-fits-all technologuy with multiple features will be superceded by more customized and user-friendly device. One of the reasons: reducing electricity costs. Moving from the present to the short-term future, Johnson forecasted that key technological tools would be (at present) remote access, broadband cell phones and paperless work product; very-short term tools include virtualization such as Second Life or CPA Island (a development of the Maryland Society of CPAs, optimized search engines and portals and short-to-mid term include cell phones with video capacity and ultra mobile laptop computers.

I tend to think of second life as being a topic of conversation between Jesus Christ and Nicodemus and "CPA Island" sounds like a prime-time reality show on the Bloomberg Network. Nevertheless, I am confident that Johnson knows his stuff--I have been to a K2 CPE conference and K2 colleague Brian Tankersley has served the accounting blogosphere well for several years at his "CPA Firm Technology Blog." To the CPA readership--hope you have some IT whizzes who can keep your firm up to date without causing information overload.