All the Paycycle team came to Melbourne for Xerocon which is Xero's first full scale conference here in Australia. It's certainly an exciting time for Rod, Chris and everyone concerned. I presented on Saturday to the audience regarding the acquisition of Paycycle by Xero and talked about some of the roadmap towards integration.

The vibe in the room throughout the weekend was fantastic. Having worked at Oracle back in the heady days of the late 90's before the dot com crash, I recognise the same enthusiasm, the same optimism for the future and the same passion for the technology. We'll look back at the first Xerocon in 3 years and see the massive leaps and gains that we've made. Not only in terms of partner numbers but the development of the technology and the further integration with all kinds of partners.

This growth presents enormous opportunities for all kinds of product and market channels due to the accounting game changing so rapidly. By revolutionising the technology and driving value added services, the compliance work is becoming commoditised. Accountants will be able to service more clients with higher value services with less staff. It's HUGE! Seriously.

There will be products and services invented and reengineered in order to service this ever growing market of progressive accountants. Cloud technologies that may have already been built for a different purpose or new technology that is invented to purposely service this market. Task and project management tools, document management, tax, outsourcing, insourcing, customer service tools, all kinds of things that will assist in this drive towards value added services.

Exciting times.