CompTIA Blog

Washington State legislators will convene today in Olympia for the 2017 legislative session. The regular session is scheduled to run 105 days through April 23, however special session extensions are likely.

Lawmakers gathered at the State Capitol Wednesday to celebrate the opening of the 71st General Assembly. Outgoing Speaker of the House Dickey Lee Hullinghorst (D-Boulder) and Senate President Bill Cadman (R-Colorado Springs) presided over the opening of session and then turned over their gavels to new leaders. The House of Representatives elected Crisanta Duran (D-Denver) as the new Speaker, a historic moment as she is the first Latina woman to hold the office. The Senate elected Kevin Grantham (R-Canon City) as President of the 71st General Assembly.

When combined with the growing population of “financial entrepreneurs” in the IT industry, the number of prospective business sales will continue to escalate over the next few years. But how long will the demand keep up with the supply? As they say, timing is everything.

Ray DeJean manages all the connectivity on the campus of Southeastern Louisiana University and acts as an adjunct professor. In the server room and in the classroom, he’s always learning, teaching and bringing it all to the table to help CompTIA set the industry standards for advanced cybersecurity professionals.

At the beginning of December, the CompTIA Policy Executive Board (PxB) met to review and finalize CompTIA’s 2017 policy priorities. This group is charged with ensuring all policy committees are aware of policy positions and initiatives, seek consensus for those positions, and provide guidance on the growth and direction of CompTIA advocacy activities.

Should Amazon’s foray into managed services be a major concern to MSPs? In some regards, yes, but only if providers fail to adapt and double down on their customer focus. Rather than viewing Amazon’s move as an immediate competitive threat, MSPs should consider it a catalyst for retooling their own businesses.

During a Policy Executive Board (PxB) dinner in December, we were honored to have Congressman Will Hurd (R-TX), Ambassador Rufus Yerxa, President and CEO of the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), and Jeff Lambert from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) join us for a lively discussion on what the next several months may hold for tech policy and larger geopolitical considerations.

Do you have a good understanding of what each of your customer’s employees do with their individual devices and applications? What solutions could boost their productivity or make their work more enjoyable? Successful IT services firms know the answers to those questions — or at least how to find them. Fantastic solutions begin (and end) with the end users.

Hinkley High School student Jose Rivera grew up loving computers. And with the help of the KidsTek program, he earned a CompTIA Network+ certificate his junior year, setting him up for educational and career success, no matter where his future takes him.

What will 2017 bring for the IT channel? Providers will certainly continue to assess and strengthen their business models measure the long-term viability and profitability of their offerings, and identify growth opportunities. They will transform and innovate. But which trends will entice IT service providers to make a shift (or at least set the wheels in motion) in 2017? Here are five of the most likely drivers:

Which stories were of most importance to the channel in 2016? With so many to choose from, we narrowed it down to the five that should have a major impact on the IT industry for years to come.

CompTIA recently released CyberSeek, an interactive heat map that provides data on the supply and demand of cybersecurity employment throughout the nation. This tool allows policy makers to see the true impact of the educational pipeline and how the talent gap impacts their state or metro area today.

Join us as we count down CompTIA's Greatest Hits of 2016, which cover cybersecurity, career development and even geography. What was your favorite article this year?

Cassandra Anderson, vice president of channel, sales operations and marketing at Crexendo, shares her thoughts on sales playbooks.

Coming off a surprising federal election in December, the Human Services Information Technology Advisory Group (HSITAG) heard from national association leaders about their predictions on the future of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under a new administration. While a lot is still unknown and much to be revealed in the New Year, the one thing that the group agreed on (and has been publicly stated) is that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) as we know it will go away – at least in part.