Today's Technology for Tomorrow's Firm.
TECHNOLOGY IN PRACTICE 2012 CES Trends in Your Future O 36 36 March 2012
ur annual two day pilgrimage to the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) each January is complete and there are a number of trends and products that we believe will impact the accounting profession in the year ahead. For
those not familiar with CES, it is one of the largest trade shows in the world with over 153,000 attendees reviewing thousands of new consumer gadgets in venues covering 1.8M square feet (or to put that into perspective-37 football fi elds).
While most of these products debut on the consumer /end user side, the successful tools eventually fi nd their way into accounting fi rms. We found four key CES trends with the potential of impacting accoun- tants technology decisions in 2012: ultra-mobile devices, hyper-conver- gence, component miniaturization, and the evolution of personal clouds.
1
Ultra-Mobile Devices: While there were numerous tablet rollouts this year, none were interest ing
enough to have us consider jumping ship from our iPad2 (yet). Where we did see a signifi cant trend was in the number of ultra-portable laptops that are copying Apple's streamlined Airbook format. Intel showcased at least twelve laptops that were less than one inch thin, weigh less than three pounds, and have extended bat ery lives of eight to ten hours. At the same time Mobile Tech-
Roman H. Kepczyk, CPA.CITP
Roman H. Kepczyk, CPA.CITP is Director of Consulting for Xcentric, LLC. and works exclusively with accounting fi rms to implement today's leading best practices and technologies. Roman recently updated his "Quantum of Paperless: A Partner's Guide to Accounting Firm Optimization," which is available at Amazon.com.
March 2012 • www.CPAPractice www
nology (MMT2.com) debuted their latest mobile monitor that sports a 15.6" screen and even one version that can also can integrate an iPad or Android tablet. T e benefi t to this combination is that accountants will be able to carry the laptop and a dual screen into the fi eld in signifi cantly smaller and lighter package that is about the size of a traditional laptop. T e mobile monitor with integrated tablet bay also allows accountants to present information on their tablet while allowing clients sit ing across from them to simultaneously see what is on their screen. The ultraportable HP Envy
Spectre and Samsung 9 Series had great specifi cations, but the product
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that we are waiting to compare them to is Dell's latest XPS laptop that has a 13" screen but fi ts in a form factor that is closer to a 12" device. T is smaller form factor will allow road warriors to actually work on small regional jets (even when the person in front of them leans their seat back) for fi ve or more hours. Lenovo dis- played their Yoga device which is an ultraportable laptop that can convert into a touch tablet (which was one of the fi rst devices we saw demon- strating Windows 8 touch screen capabilities). Intel also showcased future prototypes of this type of device pointing to future laptops being less than a half inch thick and easily converting between a tablet and a laptop with a keyboard.
2
Hyper Convergence: T e convergence between smartphones and tablets was obvious, with both
products integrating each other's capabilities. While the screens on smart phones stretch to become
larger, the tablets are integrating bet er mobile phone capabilities (as evidenced by products such as the Samsung Galaxy) to the point where both devices will do the same thing and it is just a matter of the user deciding what size screen they want to carry and work on. While auditors will most likely use
smartphones, along with their lap- tops, tax personnel and consultants may opt for the larger screens of a tablet that has the integrated voice telephone features including cam- eras. T is quality of the integrated cameras is surpassing the "point and shoot" cameras that many of us carry and as one presenter joked: "watching someone take pictures with an iPad is fairly awkward, but