CompTIA Blog

Last Thursday, representatives from two CompTIA member companies, Michael Paynter of Tier3 Technologies and Cameron Camp of ESET, flew to accompany me on a full day of meetings at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to discuss unlicensed use of TV white space spectrum and its value to small tech businesses, which can use it to innovate and grow. We met with staff members from all five FCC commissioners’ offices to make a final push to leave sufficient spectrum available for unlicen ...

With multiple CompTIA certifications and nearly two years of full-time practical IT experience in hand, IT-Ready Program alumnus Brad Clemensen says his career prospects represent a complete turnaround from where they were in 2012.

We welcome spring this month with a great conversation with Margaret Anderson Kelliher, president and chief executive officer of the Minnesota High Tech Association (MHTA). We learned about the successes she has had with workforce development and placement initiatives — including those through the Creating IT Futures Foundation, the philanthropic arm of CompTIA. We also learned how advocacy and policy play into workforce development for MHTA member companies. Can you describe the succes ...

All CompTIA members are encouraged to participate in one or more of the nine CompTIA communities, sharing ideas and providing feedback on the initiatives that are the most interesting to members and their businesses. The lesser-known — but just as critical — advisory councils (Partner, Vendor and Telecom) are literally the think tanks of the association, though they’ve taken on many other responsibilities in the past few years. Each group is made up of senior channel executives ...

These days, practically everything is connected: smartphones, home security systems, refrigerators. There’s even an annual connectivity conference dedicated to wearable technology, like eyeglasses with lens screens and smartclothing embedded with tablets. We’re browsing with real-time communication and playing with complex connectivity for a population more than double what it was 40 years ago. Wealth, too, has expanded and enjoys more global distribution than before. Today’s 2 ...

This sponsored blog entry was submitted by T.C. Doyle of Channel Partners. What do Scotchgard, Super Glue and Saccharin have in common? They were all invented by accident. That’s right. The people behind these modern marvels were actually trying to invent something else, but instead stumbled across these now well-known products. Thankfully, they were not deflated by their failed experiments. Instead, they looked at things with a fresh perspective and helped bring these innovations to marke ...

Recently, I have been focusing on the amount of disruption caused by technology trends such as cloud computing and mobility. This isn’t a unique idea — other organizations recognize this change as well and have introduced concepts such as the fifth era of business transformation or the shift from information technology to enterprise technology. My own thoughts line up closely with IDC’s notion of a third platform, where the first two platforms are represented by the mainframe a ...

It’s that time of year when a literal who’s who of channel professionals gather to take on some of the industry’s biggest opportunities and concerns. CompTIA’s Annual Member Meeting convenes April 1 in sunny San Diego with a full slate of interactive group discussions, thought-provoking presentations and numerous networking opportunities. Attendees will also get to partake in this year’s IT Hall of Fame and Lifetime Achievement Awards Dinner, as Robert Faletra and S ...

This sponsored blog entry was submitted by Chris Gonsalves of ChannelNomics. In a bygone era, the little blue “Intel Inside” swirl stood as the tech industry’s version of an Underwriters Laboratories logo: a badge that assured hardware buyers and sellers they were getting leading-edge processor technology. Intel Corp. would like those days back, thank you very much. In this age of cloud, with infrastructure largely decoupled from business computing, the speeds and feeds that ...

Steven Holcomb isn’t just an U.S. Olympic gold medalist; he’s also a former combat engineer and self-described computer nerd. While training for the Olympics as part of the U.S. bobsled team, he earned his CompTIA A+ and CompTIA Security+ certifications, and even worked to maintain the network in the IT division of the U.S. Olympics. Along the way, he’s maintained his successful athletic career and battled severe health issues and depression.

Wednesday’s hearing before the House Judiciary Committee underscored the complexities of determining a solution for the Internet sales tax issue that will allow states to collect sales taxes from out-of-state vendors. While the hearing showed only minor dissent amongst the panelists about whether these taxes are payable to state treasuries, which seemed to be largely a matter of semantics, there was no clear consensus on how this could be accomplished with the least burden for sellers, ven ...

For some managed services providers, simply presenting a line card of IT products and services and pointing to a collection of manufacturer certifications works to cultivate and retain clients. But for CMIT Solutions of Denver, nothing could be further from the truth. Here, a vendor-agnostic credential serves as a key business differentiator and a linchpin for fostering clients’ loyalty and trust. From Break-Fix to MSP Founded in 2004 by Debi and Phil Bush, CMIT Solutions of Denver is one ...

A grassroots event to educate the IT industry on tech-related legislation brought out about two to three dozen entrepreneurs, educators and parents Monday morning to the downtown office of the Illinois Technology Association (ITA). The TechVoice Illinois briefing, hosted by ITA and CompTIA, and sponsored by Google, was an informal forum that touched on patent litigation reform, immigration, cybersecurity, taxes and STEM education. The forum was moderated by Andrew Hoog, chief executive officer o ...

Can your business be truly successful if revenue remains steady — or even suffers a slight decline? Can your company be in top form when you haven’t hired a new employee in years? Achievement is best judged by those whose blood, sweat and tears went into building the organization, plus of course the stakeholders who’ve helped support the operation along the way. As any business owner knows, revenue declines coupled with cost reduction might actually lead to profit, so if client ...

Robert (Bob) Faletra, an active and influential member of the IT channel and 25-year advocate for the industry will be inducted during CompTIA’s Annual Member Meeting into the 2014 class of the IT Hall of Fame. Faletra influenced and supported our industry through a variety of publishing and executive management roles with the former CMP media group. Considered one of the top experts in the indirect technology field, he has advised solution providers, vendors and distribution professionals ...