CompTIA Blog

Regardless of their industry experience and knowledge of the topic, it’s not easy for channel executives to navigate the world of cloud services. The business prospects for and obstacles facing the industry here are as vast as the number of solutions available. While the delivery model and basic value propositions are fairly straightforward, deciding what types of cloud services to offer and which suppliers to choose can be a dizzying exercise for most solution providers. For example, should the ...

The training industry has entered the "Age of Personal Learning," where individuals expect to take control of their own personal learning experiences and organizations will have to adjust to meet those expectations, a training industry executive told attendees at CompTIA Colloquium this week. "They want it now and if you don't give it to them they will find it somewhere else," said Doug Howard, chief executive officer and founder, TrainingIndustry.com, a market intelligence firm that studies t ...

During the second of three General Sessions held at CompTIA’s Annual Member Meeting, happening this week at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, the audience got a “Gut Check” in the form of a panel moderated by Carolyn April, director of industry analysis at CompTIA. The panel was comprised of Scott Barlow, vice president of sales and marketing at Reflexion Networks; Eric Long, CEO of Information Technology Solutions; Quy Nguyen, CEO of Allyance Communications; and Angela Trillhaase, a busi ...

CompTIA’s Partner, Telecom and Vendor Advisory Councils held a joint meeting yesterday morning at the association’s Annual Member Meeting, happening this week at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers. The meeting featured a presentation by Bharath Natarajan, director of product marketing, TDCloud and software services at Tech Data Corporation, on “the Role of Distribution in a Cloud-Centric World.”To set the tone for his remarks, Natarajan began with a series of slides sourced from other autho ...

How is mobility changing the business workflow at companies? During a meeting of CompTIA’s newest member community, the Mobility Community, at the association’s Annual Member Meeting, happening this week at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers, Seth Robinson, director of technology analysis and market research at CompTIA, discussed how Pepsi handed out iPhones to 4500 hourly employees that checked on soda machines as part of a pilot project.The Pepsi employees used their phones to check in at ...

To better learn, we need to rethink how we organize information and how we teach that information. Reuben Tozman, chief learning officer, edCetra Training, delved into how people will learn in the future during the CompTIA Colloquium conference this week in Chicago. Traditionally teaching has moved from one teacher to one student, to one teacher to many students. But with the Web, one student can have many teachers through videos, white papers, ebooks, blogs etc. The web allows learning to b ...

On the surface, the jobs of sports agent and IT solution provider may appear to have little in common. But the two professions share many traits that lead to business success, according to noted agent, author and speaker Molly Fletcher.Fletcher, who heads up her own sports agency business, MWF Enterprises, LLC, delivered the keynote address Wednesday at CompTIA’s Annual Member Meeting in Chicago.Fletcher shared a series of anecdotes and stories from her career, from how she got her start in spor ...

The training industry has entered “the Age of Personal Learning,” in which individuals expect to take control of their own personal learning experiences and organizations will have to adjust to meet those expectations – this according to Doug Howard, chief executive officer and founder of TrainingIndustry.com, a market intelligence firm that studies the global training industry.“They want it now and if you don’t give it to them they will find it somewhere else,” Howard said.Howard delivered his ...

CompTIA’s Cloud/SaaS Community met today at the association’s Annual Member Meeting, and one of the biggest topics discussed was the forthcoming Cloud Trustmark+.According to the briefing provided in the meeting, the target of this Trustmark is public SaaS solution vendors with cloud go-to-market. The channel value proposition here is to protect resellers and their customers by ensuring cloud vendors meet a certain level of technical performance. The projected scope of the Trustmark, so far, is ...

CompTIA’s IT Services and Support Community is investigating the feasibility of creating an industry-wide clearinghouse to validate and track technical certifications held by IT service technicians. Tuesday’s community meeting was part of CompTIA’s Annual Member Meeting.“The clearinghouse would allow potential clients and customers to validate a technician’s qualifications, including training, certifications and specialties, so the client can be sure that they are getting what they are paying fo ...

In a world where smart customers expect and demand more from their suppliers, a strong and vibrant services component is essential for long-term growth and success. IT services executives attending CompTIA’s Annual Member Meeting heard that message Tuesday during a meeting of the CompTIA IT Services and Support Community.“Service is ‘the’ business to be in for the next several decades,” said James Alexander, founder of Alexander Consulting and author of several books on successful service operat ...

CompTIA’s Telecom Advisory Council met for the first time today at the association’s Annual Member Meeting, happening this week at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers. The meeting saw the new council in the initial stages of defining its goals; CompTIA director of communities Kate Hunt said a key goal of the meeting was to find one issue the TAC wanted to start collaborating on.During the open discussion that followed, TAC vice chair Mike Saxby, principal at Allied Tech Solutions, said he se ...

CompTIA ChannelCon is the new name and identity of our premier annual event. The inaugural CompTIA ChannelCon is scheduled for July 29-31 at the Peabody Orlando Hotel in Orlando, FL. “Our premier event, known for many years as Breakaway, now has a name that truly reflects its scope,” said Kelly Ricker, senior vice president, events and education, CompTIA. “The quality of the meetings, partnership opportunities, hot topic sessions and channel-neutral training make ChannelCo ...

Mike Dellacava Sr. Systems Engineer, Reflexion Networks Mike Dellacava didn't choose IT as a career. "It chose me," he believes. "I was formed along the way, as I learned to do what needed to be done. But I've been happy doing the work." Dellacava's father, a systems enterprise administrator and project manager, introduced him to computers, starting with an old 386, an early desktop PC. "I've been taking apart computers, building, breaking and fixing them since I was seven," says Dell ...

Are you highly skilled? Do you have (or nearly have) your certifications? Are you still job hunting? Think about contracting. It allows you to put your skills to work, get paid and test out different companies at the same time. CompTIA recently partnered with Field Nation, a leading provider of independent field service technicians to the computer service industry. The new partnership is designed to help bring paying work to certified IT pros. It helps IT pros on the hunt for short- or long-te ...