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Vendors of any application or service delivered via the cloud realize that they are often held to a higher standard than on-premise software providers, but in the wake of recent outages at Intuit, the issue of what vendors in the space must do to address downtime events - planned or otherwise - has been pushed into the spotlight.

The updated work plan recently unveiled by the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the International Accounting Standards Board reflects stakeholder concerns about the time required to review a number of exposure drafts in order to meet the June 2011 target date of completing major convergence projects.

During last month's East Coast heat wave, I found myself watching in air-conditioned comfort the documentary The Smartest Guys in the Room, which chronicled the events leading up to the massive fraud and subsequent collapse of Enron.

California

The Congressional Research Service recently commented in its report, "Tax Gap: Misclassification of Employees as Independent Contractors," that tackling the problem of misclassification of workers "would reduce federal, state and local tax gaps and provide other important benefits."

M&B on point

The past two years have not been overly kind to the life settlement market.

Summer is when we get to catch up on our reading, and this year's list included articles on what, if anything, to do about inventory accounting because of international convergence.

NEW YORK

Not Mad Men