A few posts back, inspired by the stunning news that Facebook’s customer satisfaction rating is even worse than that of the IRS’s e-filing program, I wrote about the giant social network’s possible future as a whistle-blower tool for tax authorities in developing countries such as the Philippines.

In a guest blog at the Tax Foundation today, Aaron Merchak stands that idea on its head and asks: Is Facebook actually on the verge of becoming a sovereign state, complete with taxes of its own? more

The story behind the rise of Silicon Valley’s high-tech industry is frequently retold as a series of engineering feats. However, Part I of my interview with veteran CFO Paul Vilandre reveals that the innovation responsible for the rise of Silicon Valley didn’t necessarily come from a lab.

BF: You’re frequently referred to as a “Silicon Valley CFO,” but where exactly did you begin your career?

Vilandre: My finance career spans more than 35 years in high tech. I started off with IBM, joined Digital Equipment, and came out to the West Coast to work for Intel. After 7 years at Intel, I served a string of start-ups as CFO.

BF: What can you tell us about the journey from back east to out west? What changed for you from a finance career perspective?

Vilandre: When I came out west in 1978 to Intel, I had a job very similar to what I had had at Digital. It was what we called a group controller. It was a senior financial job: the number two or number three (finance) executive in both companies. I had a similar number of people working for me, which was over 100. When I was at DEC, I was lucky to get 500 options a year, and I guess I was a pretty big star on the DEC finance team. I went to Intel for essentially the same job, and I received 5,000 options. So one of the differences between East Coast and West Coast firms in high tech was a factor of ten, and this applied across the board. At DEC, in addition to the 500 options I received, I was given another 500 options to spread around to the team. This meant that only two or three other people really received options. Meanwhile, when I got to Intel, in addition to the 5,000 I received, there were another 5,000 that I was given to spread around to the team. more

Achieving the full vision of the enterprise performance management framework involves more than selecting one of its many methodologies and then purchasing software to install and implement the solution. It requires individuals with talent and skills. Here is a list of famous people who have inspired me and exemplify the traits valuable in achieving that full vision:

• Socrates: An effective way to help people learn is by asking them questions that lead to meaning. Socrates taught Plato and other Greek philosophers by making them think about answers to his questions rather than just lecturing. For example, asking “Does our organization measure the correct performance indicators that reveal progress toward achieving our strategic objectives?” is more stimulating than simply providing a list of commonly accepted industry metrics.

• Thomas Jefferson: Americans typically have a favorite “founding father” of their nation. Mine is Jefferson because he believed in a fair society. Performance management involves equitable treatment of allocating resources to align with the organization’s strategy to optimize results. For example, activity-based costing traces costs accurately, compared to traditional broadly averaged cost allocations that give false impressions because some product’s costs subsidize others. more

Got a grip on nexus? Or has it got you by the throat?

Your customer exemption management: Adept or inept?

Are your use tax processes …

a. A well-oiled machine?

b. More or less adequate?

c. What’s a use tax?

Here’s a quick way to find out. more

A cloud computing cost analysis from Infosys, the big outsourcing provider based in India, came up with interesting results. In the first year, the on-premise system appears much more costly than the hosted cloud-based system. By the third year, the cost gap between the two is not substantial. By the fifth year, the on-premise system actually looks better. However, when you figure the costs for license renewal and a hardware upgrade that fifth year, the on-premise system will lose its cost advantage.

A McKinsey report in 2009 also looked at the payback from cloud computing and, according to a review of the report by Bernard Golden, came to the opposite conclusion: that cloud computing is more expensive. Golden’s interesting analysis is here.

The truth is that every organization will come up with different result when it plugs its own data into a business case for cloud. To figure out whether cloud computing is right for your organization, wiredFINANCE suggests evaluating three areas in both quantitative and qualitative terms. more