A pair of software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers is riding the growing movement of financial management software to the cloud as quickly as they can. Intacct announced strong growth in 2009 despite a generally poor economy. Xero (pronounced zero), a New Zealand-based company, is targeting small businesses, including businesses with as few as three people, for as little as $19 per month.

Traditionally, financial management software was licensed and deployed on-premises. Packages from companies like Peachtree or Oracle were feature-rich, big, and costly, and required a dedicated server. Beyond the acquisition cost, the software was costly to support and maintain. In addition, sharing information among users was cumbersome.

SaaS and the cloud change the nature of financial management software. Rather than acquiring, implementing, and accessing a heavy-footprint software package on-premises, users log on to their cloud-based financial system with just a browser. The application and the data reside at the cloud provider. more

A recent discussion on LinkedIn titled “Social Media for Business Is Crap” drew over 1,000 responses very quickly. Clearly, it touched a nerve. The discussion finally got pulled from the site when some people went ballistic. You can see what’s left of it here.

The same group started a second discussion along similar lines: Why Social Media Networking, such as Facebook and Twitter, live or DON’T live up to their hype. Find that here. When last checked, it had about 50 calmer responses.

“Wasn’t the big allure of Social Media supposed to be that for very little expenditure in money, time, and resources, a business could get their information to a massive audience? Now, it would seem that social media requires hard work and lots of it, plenty of planning, a good degree of talent, and a lot of luck. Not to mention money …,” one respondent wrote. Well, yes and no. Let’s clarify a few things about social media and business. more

Symantec released its third annual technology usage survey last week. What grabbed attention was not any particular technology but the lead role that midsize organizations are taking in the adoption of new IT.

The study defines midsize enterprises as those with 2,000-10,000 employees. Not exactly mom-and-pop operations, these are big enough to leverage the advantages of IT and to invest in IT skills but not so big as to be weighed down by entrenched technology processes and practices.

For example, midsize organizations are adopting cloud computing and deduplication technology at higher rates (11 to 17 percent higher) than either large or small organizations. Here are the study’s top findings. more

Remember the heady days of the dot-com boom when any company with a PowerPoint and a white paper could use stock options to lure product developers and drive them toward a promised IPO? The economy and the market have cooled considerably since then, and regulators have piled on rules to curb the most egregious option abuses. Although IPO action barely shows a pulse today, stock options still remain an effective incentive in a compensation strategy.

Not managing stock options correctly can get a company in trouble. Broadcom Corp. recently agreed to pay $160.5 million to settle investor claims relating to the networking and communications chip maker’s stock options accounting, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. Similarly, last month, Reuters reported that Comverse Technology Inc. settled a class-action lawsuit over stock options backdating for $225 million.

These are headlines your organization doesn’t need. more

The cloud can simplify your IT infrastructure, but it also can complicate audit and compliance. This isn’t a deal-breaker; it’s more just another complication that must be identified and dealt with.

“There are many approaches and nuisances to cloud computing. Benefits to the enterprise as well as risks will vary depending on the types of service and deployment models selected, writes co-author Peet Rapp in a paper published by the ISACA titled “Cloud Computing: Business Benefits With Security, Governance and Assurance Perspectives.” He describes those models in the paper.

There are three main complications that make the cloud challenging from a security, compliance, and audit perspective: (1) Lack of direct control, (2) Location transparency, and 3) the Public nature of the cloud. more