CompTIA Blog

John Kaufman discussed the art of differentiation when selling IT and IT training at CompTIA’s EMEA Member & Partner Conference this year. Sales, he said, is not just a financial exchange – it is the art of influencing. We should learn from our everyday interactions with people to become better salespeople. Using clips from the movie Hitch, in which Will Smith plays a suave dating guru, he explained how influencers can differentiate themselves. He urged delegates to remember tha ...

Lawrence Rowley, Funding Manager, City and Guilds, discussed the current funding landscape for training programmes that may incorporate IT work experience, training and certification at CompTIA’s EMEA Member & Partner Conference this year. Rowley said that the UK government’s priorities for skills growth are currently centred around traineeships, apprenticeships and programmes for the unemployed. We’re now seeing a return to protected funding channels for each of these str ...

Tim Harford, Financial Times journalist, Radio 4 presenter and author of the bestselling Undercover Economist delivered the opening keynote on “Innovation and the Art of Good Mistakes” at CompTIA’s EMEA Member & Partner Conference this year. Harford started by explaining marginal improvements – small changes that can make a difference to a business. Here, he praised the IT industry for its successful approach. But he argued that this approach can be too easy, and to ...

At midnight on Thursday, a default on the Federal government’s obligations was averted and the government re-opened after a 16-day shutdown.  Congress agreed to a short-term deal to fund the federal government through January 15th, and extend the debt ceiling to February 7th. So, what does this mean for a tech agenda in the remaining days of 2013?  To answer that question, one should first realize that with Congressional recess and holidays, there are only a little more than 20 w ...

CompTIA and its exam development partner viaForensics are releasing the CompTIA Mobile App Security+ certification today. The exam is designed to validate that mobile application developers have the skills to securely create a native iOS or Android mobile app while also ensuring secure network communications and backend web services.

When virtually everyone claims to sell and support similar services in specific industries, how can businesses set themselves apart from the crowd? Differentiation can be difficult, often requiring significant investments to tailor product offerings and ramp up successful marketing campaigns. That can be a risky venture for any small business, especially where commoditization is already negatively affecting profit margins. While the low price method is one way to differentiate a company’s ...

The Securities and Exchange Commission has re-opened the comment period through November 4 for regulations issued under “the JOBS Act” concerning crowdfunding. Since its release of amendments to Regulation D, Form D and Rule 156 on July 24, concern has been growing in the startup community that the SEC rules go against the spirit of the JOBS Act by requiring additional compliance steps not envisioned in the law. More specifically, the SEC’s rules implementing removal of the ban ...

Just as it is in the rest of society, the IT channel has its own bell curve representing a breadth of personalities and business innovations. At one end are the early adopters; those who jump at every opportunity to experiment with the latest technologies and processes in their businesses, to help their customers, or both. Whether their interest for innovation comes from client necessity or their own curiosity, their cutting edge capabilities become a factor of differentiation that gives them a ...

As major trends like cloud computing, mobility and Big Data continue to dominate technology headlines and channel discussions; there are a number of interesting developments taking place at other levels of the technology universe. Improvements to the most basic building blocks of IT have enabled today’s trends, and tomorrow’s trends will be fueled by the pioneering improvements currently underway: Computing: The end of Moore’s Law has been predicted for at least a decade, but m ...

This morning we awoke to the stark reality that our lawmakers and the president have failed to reach a deal, even in the short-term, to fund the federal government. The first shuttering of government doors in 17 years could go on for several days, if not to the next significant inflection point on the calendar – a vote on raising the debt ceiling, which should come between October 17 and November 1. The fact that the government will continue to pay our military, and that there are separat ...

Given the rapid rate of change and the addition of new players in the cloud market, it’s rare that organizations will understand the entire scope of knowledge that they need to cut through the sales pitches and successfully deploy the cloud solution that is right for them. To address this problem, CompTIA worked with cloud subject matter experts to develop the CompTIA Cloud+ certification exam.

We’ve written in the past about legislation that would require all businesses marketing goods or services to collect sales tax on behalf of each state into which the business sells products or services. Our main concern has always been the additional compliance burden this would place on all business, disproportionately affecting small businesses. Late last week, House Judiciary Committee (HJC) Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) set out his seven “Basic Principles on Remote ...

IT services was a much different animal just a decade ago. The traditional break/fix model was predominant, with typical providers spending a vast majority of their time travelling between customer sites making repairs and performing regular maintenance and downloading software updates. Most issues weren’t even reported until system performance was severely affected or it went completely offline and someone decided to make a call. Those delays often lead to significant lapses in productivi ...

CompTIA will retire the Printing and Document Imaging (PDI+) exam on Jan. 31, 2014. Vouchers for the exam are good until Jan. 31, 2014, the final day to take the exam. Anyone who has earned the CompTIA PDI+ certification will be certified for life.

Continuing efforts to gather support for S. 193, “the Startup Innovation Credit Act of 2013,” we’re urging tech SMBs and entrepreneurs to participate in the TechVoice “Tweet Support for Startups” on October 30. All TechVoice members, as well as their member companies, will be encouraged to tweet their senators and Senate staff to ask for support and co-sponsorship of the legislation. Because the companion bill has not yet been introduced in the House, Tweet Day will ...