Accurate Accounting: Diego Lopez is the managing partner of Accurate Accounting, a small accounting firm
that operates a dozen offices in California. Accurate Accounting provides audit and consulting services to a
growing number of small- and medium-sized firms, many of which are high technology firms. Accurate
Accounting staff typically spend many days on-site with clients during their consulting and audit projects but
has increasingly been using e-mail and instant messaging (IM) to work with clients.
Now, many firms are pushing Accurate Accounting to adopt videoconferencing. Diego is concerned about what
videoconferencing software and hardware to install. Although Accurate Accounting’s e-mail system enables it
to exchange e-mail with any clients, using IM has proved difficult because Accurate Accounting has had to use
one IM software package with some companies and different IM software with others.
Diego is concerned that videoconferencing may prove to be as difficult to manage as IM. “Why can’t IM work
as simple as e-mail?” he asks. “Will my new videoconferencing software and hardware work as simply as email, or will it be IM all over again?”
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