Acumatica has named nine individuals as Most Valuable Professionals. These were chosen from partners such as resellers and the ISV community and were the most outstanding contributors to the Acumatica community and its products. The MVPs include Jeff Roth, CEO of SWK Technologies; Patricia Bennett, CEO of PC Bennett and Rahul Gedupudi, a member of PC Bennett's Board; Joe Satlin, director of product innovation at Jamis Software; Joel Gress, managing consultant of Dynamic Tech Services.

I told a friend I was going to take some pictures of raptors. He said, "Oh, I love the old guys like Tupac." ... The Republican presidential debates have been interesting in that depending on polling numbers, a candidate can be dis-invited to the next event. I was thinking that it would be more fun to use the system of the game show "Russian Roulette", in which the contestants stand in a circle on a game platform.

Good-bye, Convergence; hello, Envision. And this week, after a bunch of people have probably already set plans for attending the Dynamics Convergence conference in New Orleans, La., Microsoft announced it will be holding a more general business show called Envision. Microsoft had said last year it would change the Convergence format and there had already been talk among ISVs that they would stop attending or significantly cut back on booth space. That will probably go for much of the channel that has attended for years.

Avalara has scheduled a conference, its first-ever, for May 10 and 11 in New Orleans, La. Since this publication announced the show in early December, this is just for those who might have missed that news. Called Crush 2016, the conference features training session, educational programs and of course CPE will be available for said events. Material covered will include VAT (value added tax) and landed cost tariffs; fuel and other excise taxes; exemption certificate,1099, W-9, and other tax document management; and tax returns processing and remittance.