CompTIA Blog

Here’s an alarming statistic: one in seven small and mid-sized businesses have no IT security protection. According to a new survey by security software vendor AVG Technologies, SMBs are particularly exposed to Internet-born threats that could disrupt growth. And, worse, they don’t have the expertise to exercise risk management. There are a couple of well-known facts reinforced by the AVG survey: SMBs are exposed to the same security threats as large enterprises. SMBs do not have the expertise a ...

This blog post courtesy of Keith Warburton of TCA, the UK Channel Community of CompTIAThe Technology Channels Association (TCA) was the not-for-profit trade body for the U.K. IT marketplace. We were in business for nearly 18 years and in that time we consistently provided a wide range of services to our members, who included vendors, distributors and of course; resellers. We always took the view that coopertition is the way forward – we all have more to gain by cooperating with others than we ha ...

Minnesota Congressman John Kline was chosen on December 8th by the House Republican Conference to serve as the Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee.  What does this mean for workforce development and education? Kline has indicated that under his leadership the Committee will focus on four major policy goals: Giving employers the certainty, flexibility, and freedom to create jobs; Conducting robust oversight of education and workforce programs across the federal government to prote ...

I recently sat down with CompTIA president and CEO Todd Thibodeaux to chat about hot tech gifts this holiday season. We’re both longtime gadget guys and tech tinkerers so it’s always fun to compare notes on product trends. Since many of the tech products that find their way under the tree also find their way into the workplace, it’s worth taking a look at the drivers behind the gift lists and the implications for the IT industry.This year will again be defined by incremental improvements and new ...

For those of you who haven’t watched the NFL this year, here is a season recap of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals. The Steelers began the year without their starting quarterback for four games and several other impactful injuries on the offense, namely on their lineman and both backup quarterbacks. With all of those problems, you might expect them to finish last in their division. But that’s not the situation. They continue to win and have been called the best team in the AFC ...

On Tuesday, December 7, the Administration released its “Fact Sheet on the Framework Agreement on Middle Class Tax Cuts and Unemployment Insurance.”  Conspicuously absent was a provision to repeal the new and onerous Form 1099 reporting requirement – which will not go into effect until 2012.The basic concepts of the agreement are as follows:Extended for 13 months: Unemployment benefits at current levelsExtended for 2 years: Existing income tax rates R&D tax credit Child Tax Credit of $1,000 ...

Spiffs, rebates, special discounts and limited promotions are tools all vendors use to tickle their customers into loosening their purse strings. Vendors surrender a little margin in favor of capturing a customer to upsell and expand the sales relationship later. But are these special incentives always worth the expense? How do they affect the partner in the sales process?This is the question Bill Leutzinger, president of telecom reseller TelecomMedic, asked in his recent blog post on Phone Plus ...

The world is moving up into the clouds, of that there is no doubt. Just how the channel will make this migration and what form will businesses take once they arrive remain in question. This week, the Channel-Lands received a reaffirmation commitment in the cloud to partners from one of the largest patrons. We also heard from the new HP chief on his plans for partners. And we’re monitoring some interesting moves by Apple.Microsoft Chief Affirms Channel Cloud CommitmentMicrosoft global channel chi ...

Literally moments after releasing more than a quarter-million sensitive U.S. diplomatic documents, WikiLeaks issued a distress call via Twitter that sounded like something out of Star Trek. It essentially read: “We’re under attack.”The assault aiming to block access to the classified documents was nothing more than a distributed denial of service attack – commonly called DDoS. In hacking circles, DDoS is one of the oldest and relatively simplest of attacks. It leverages the Syn-Ack handshake tha ...

As of December 13th, CompTIA’s new address will be 3500 Lacey Road, Suite 100, Downers Grove, IL 60515.  We’ve been an ardent Chicagoan for 25 years – so we’re not moving far.  In fact, our new office is only 3.5 miles from our former headquarters in Oakbrook Terrace, IL.  But as the Jeffersons said in their iconic TV show, we’re truly moving on up.Why move?  It’s simple.  Our new office space will allow us to better serve you, our members and the larger IT channel.With our new space, we will en ...

Service abuse and warranty fraud (hereafter referred to simply as “warranty fraud”) has been a hot topic in our CompTIA services communities as well as within the industry at large over the past year. And well it should be; recent research by PwC estimates that the cost to the industry is between 3 to 5 percent of revenue. We have all been touched in one way or another by warranty fraud. It’s a pervasive industry problem that, much like shoplifting, can inflate the cost of goods and services to ...

This month the CompTIA Educational Foundation awarded IT Merit Award Scholarships of $250 each to 25 students who are pursuing careers in the information technology industry.  These are kids and young adults who want to make our industry their own. The scholarships are to reward them for their extra efforts in studying for and passing their certification exams and to encourage them to keep going in their studies.  As an industry, we need to cheer on these students and others who want to become p ...

From the first face-to-face meeting of the CompTIA Cloud/SaaS Community, there was ample evidence that we needed to add a sense of clarity to the much used term, ‘cloud’. The questions started out as simple as what exactly ‘cloud’ was and evolved into deeper concerns relative to its impact on the channel (regardless of its meaning). As such, the group decided early on to focus its efforts on providing that clarity for the marketplace, while recognizing it might not be as simple as stringing toge ...

For most of us in the Channel-Lands, it was a short week. The Thanksgiving holiday usually means two-and-a-half days of work, most of which is consumed with preparations for the annual festival of food, family and football. Ah, precisely the reason our forefathers ventured to this great continent. But the technology world didn’t stop spinning just because the menu included cranberry sauce and mashed sweet potatoes. Channel-Lands was still very active with the acquisition of Novell, Oracle winnin ...

Some of the latest Microsoft TV commercials reflect scenes familiar to us all: stranded at airports waiting for crowded flights. In one spot, a couple is dismayed by the wait time for their delayed flight. How will they pass the time? “To the Cloud,” the man exclaims! He connects to his home PC to access a recorded TV show, “Celebrity Rehab: Season Premier.” Boredom abated, his wife says, “Yeah cloud.”Is this the cloud? Or better yet, what is the cloud?Defining cloud computing continues to confo ...