By: Thomas G. Stephens Jr., CPA, CITP
Blog Series: Part 3 of 3

It’s a Virtual World, After All

In today’s computing environment, we seek the best of all worlds—low cost, high-speed, secure, and easily administered computing. When we design our computing infrastructures, such that we have multiple physical servers and desktops to maintain, we likely are not able to meet all of our desired objectives. However, if we begin to virtualize our infrastructures—either in the Cloud or onsite—the opportunities for achieving our objectives increase, as does the ability to increase our technology’s ROI.

Virtualization simply means that the “real” computing is being done on a computer other than the one we use to input and view data. Such a device could be a “thin client” connected to a virtual desktop in your office, or you could connect it to a virtual desktop hosted by a company such as IVDesk^®, Cloud9 Real Time^®, or Thomson Reuters^®. Likewise, we can choose to have our servers hosted by companies such as Rackspace^®, Amazon^®, or Dell^®. In a large percentage of cases, organizations find that not only do they save money when virtualizing some or all of their infrastructures, but the quality of their computing environments increase also.

Tablets are Growing Up and Ready for Business

iPad^®, Surface/Surface Pro 2^®, and Nexus^®—are just a few of many tablet computers from which you can choose in today’s market. Tablets are rapidly catching up with their laptop cousins in terms of computing power. For example, you can now obtain a Surface Pro 2^® from Microsoft with an Intel i5 processor, 8-GB of RAM, and a 512-GB hard drive running Windows 8.1 Pro^®—in other words, a full laptop computer in the form of a tablet weighing a paltry two pounds.

As you consider your next computer, do not overlook the possibility that you might be able to obtain all of the computing power you need in a tablet device. This could be particularly true if you virtualize your desktop and all you need is a device that allows you to access it remotely over the Internet.

Note

Every individual and every organization is different. As such, not all of the technologies described in this article will prove to be useful to all readers. However, you should keep a close eye on each of the items mentioned and carefully consider whether implementing one or more of these technologies will prove to be beneficial.

NCACPA partners with K2 Enterprises for their delivery of top-notch technology focused CPE webinars. Click to see a complete listing of K2 webinars and to register

Mr. Stephens is a shareholder in K2 Enterprises, where he develops and presents continuing professional education programs to accounting, financial, and other business professionals across North America. You may contact him at [email protected].