Remote possibility

The Accountancy Age awards have come and gone and the technology winners were left partying into the night.

Interestingly, although online, cloud computing and Software as a Service (SaaS)  -has continued to hit headlines and make waves in the technology industry – the award winners are not renowned for their online capabilities. All of the software winners were in-house or on-premise providers.

In my discussions with various accountants, finance directors and software vendors, remote working is one of the biggest selling points for adopting SaaS or cloud computing technology.

Gartner predicted that worldwide SaaS revenue would grow 17.7% by the end of the year, an increase from $6.4bn (£4.08bn) at the end of 2008 to $7.5bn.

However speaking to one of the technology judges at the event, I found they truly believed the client and colleague interaction was vital in running and working in a successful business. Something this judge felt was lost when too much remote working is implemented.

The awards and speaking to technology judges made me realise that online and remote working is most likely still a long way from mass adoption. In this instance I hope that I am proved wrong.