Cloud computing surely has gone mainstream when CPAs, probably as conservative a bunch as you can get, have jumped into the cloud in a big way. Through a subsidiary, CPA2BIZ, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) has launched a cloud-based portal for finance and accounting SaaS applications.

According to a recent report from Global Industry Analysts (GIA), the cloud computing services market is expected to hit $222.5 billion over the next 5 years. Driving this is the need to upgrade IT capabilities in an effort to cut costs and boost performance.

A report from International Data Corp. (IDC), Framingham, MA, shows cloud services jumping from $17.4 billion in 2009 to $44.2 billion by 2013. Of that, almost half is accounted for by software services, such as AICPA is touting. Big as it seems, the 2013 IDC figure represents just 10 percent of the total IT services market projected by the analysts. more

No sooner had a federal court ruled on the current Internet regulatory controversy, dubbed net neutrality, than the sides began forming up for the next round. Round 1 decisively went to Comcast and the big telcos. In case you missed it, here’s the AP report.

Net neutrality revolves around the right of the telcos to control who uses their bandwidth for what purposes and at what cost. Basically, the telcos want to either restrict usage by some users, ones they consider bandwidth hogs, or charge them a premium. The FCC said no; the U.S. federal court said that the FCC had overstepped its authority. Here is the ruling.

Basically, the court said that the FCC has no specific authority to do what it did. The FCC cited policy as the basis for its authority, but as the court concluded, “statements of policy, by themselves, do not create statutorily mandated responsibilities.” In short, stated policy isn’t enough; some relevant law must specifically authorize you. Does anyone think this is the last word when it comes to net neutrality?

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Extensible business reporting language (XBRL) becomes a requirement for financial disclosure in 2011 in the U.S. and much of the world. In the process, many expect XBRL to bring about convergence of U.S. GAAP and IFRS. Additionally, some hope that it will finally get the CFO enthused about technology tools. “Finance is the last frontier of automation,” observed Jaideep Shah, Senior Product Manager, Fujitsu, and David Taylor, VP, Strategy & Global Business Development, Trintech, during a recent XBRL tools webinar

“Finance creates a critical product for the company,” noted Shah and Taylor. But unlike other departments, which have ERP, CRM, supply chain management, CAD systems, procurement systems, and such, finance operates “without the benefit of a production platform and/or automated system of record.” Unless, maybe, you consider the GL the automated system of record.

Gartner picks up on finance’s technology shortcoming in a recent report. “XBRL can provide more capability that can improve external and internal financial reporting and transparency; however, firms are still in the process of learning.” Shah and Taylor identified a number of areas where XBRL tools can deliver greater finance automation benefits beyond just XBRL tagging. more

Pricing may be both the biggest and most forgotten lever the CFO can pull with when trying to bolster the balance sheet. A 1 percent increase in price can result in an 11 percent increase in operating income, according to PROS Holdings, a pricing optimization vendor. Just correcting current pricing mistakes usually will give you that 11 percent increase.

Gartner put out a MarketScope report titled “Price Optimization and Management Software for B2B” last year. “The market for prepackaged price optimization and management software for business-to-business (B2B) sales processes,” according to Gartner, “expanded by 20 percent in 2008, despite poor economic conditions, largely due to growing recognition of the potential value such applications pose in helping companies defend margins and revenue, and realize efficiencies with pricing processes.” To see a copy of the report at Vendavo, another leading vendor, just click here.

According to Gartner, pricing software helps companies identify underlying shortcomings in pricing practices that erode revenue and margins, and more intelligently determine how much prospective customers will pay. The software also helps realize efficiencies in deploying, administering, and enforcing prices and pricing policies. Specifically, the researchers identify four ways in which pricing tools can help the CFO. more

How do you set the marketing/advertising budget? Traditionally, companies peg it as a percent of revenue.

When business is down, like it has been for the past two years, the advertising and marketing budget drops, too. Just when you most need advertising and marketing to drive sales, there is less budget.

This may make prudent financial sense but terrible business sense. As Jonathan Shapiro, CEO of MediaWhiz, New York, points out in a recent article, today “the Internet offers numerous ways to create demonstrable and predictable ROI from one’s marketing efforts.” If you knew with a very high level of assurance that each dollar you spent on marketing would produce, say, $10 in revenue and $5 in net profit, wouldn’t you direct every dollar you could into that marketing? more