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"Big 4" used to refer to accounting firms. Accenture used to be a part of the "Big 5" with Andersen, but they had to re-brand because of the Enron scandal. They no longer do accounting.

But now all these companies are bleeding over into each others business areas - many do strategy, operations, implementation, accounting.

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another minor nitpick-- Arthur Anderson had just recently spun off its consulting division as Accenture before the Enron scandal hit, not in reaction to it. It was a move that had been planned for some time. And I'm sure they thanked their lucky stars they completed the spin-off before Enron; Accenture was safely insulated from the fallout that absolutely killed Arthur Anderson.

Auditors cannot provide other services—mainly tax and IT—to audit clients for auditor independence (SOX in the US, Combined Code in the UK and similar laws are in application worldwide).

All Big4 firms had to shelve their IT consulting to separate divisions or into new companies which most later sold:

Arthur Anderson formed Anderson Consulting which later became Accenture.

Ernst Young - Ernst & Young Consulting which was acquired by Capgemini

PriceWaterhouceCoopers sold to IBM Global Services

Deloitte retained its consulting division I think

KPMG - KPMG Consulting - Bearingpoint?

I think Deloitte and Touche is the tax/audit arm, and Deloitte is the consulting arm.

They all seem to have re-started their consulting activites. Not sure what makes it different this time.

Didn't know that - really interesting! Always had the assumption they were an Enron crisis relict.

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