CompTIA Blog

The ever-quotable baseball great, Yogi Berra, once quipped “the future ain’t what it use to be.” After several years of weak economic fundamentals and market volatility, getting excited about the future is arguably more difficult than it used to be. Many signs point to modest improvement in 2012, but it likely won’t be drastically different from the previous year. For those with the right product mix and business model, that’s probably not such a bad thing.Heading into Q1, CompTIA’s IT Industry ...

2012 promises to be an interesting year in Washington, D.C., with the upcoming presidential election dominating the political scene. Members of Congress will be anxious to wrap up the session so they can get home to campaign for reelection.  This means that the calendar will be compressed and legislative achievements will be limited.That said, hot issues will kick up (such as the online piracy debate), and we see some opportunities to push ahead with CompTIA priorities.  Moreover, Washington som ...

From time to time, CompTIA brings you blog posts from our media partners that directly relate to the success of the IT channel. Check out the post below from Tech Security Today's Michael Vizard on the how to prepare for security threats in 2012:Security in the coming year is going to be more complex than ever to manage. The attack vectors are widening and the skill sets of the hacker community are getting sharper with each passing day. In fact, the top 12 threats to IT security in 2012 are:Soci ...

We were recently bowled over by the generosity of employees at Trend Micro, who reached down deep before the holidays to help veterans who are trying to make it in the IT field.Their generosity will help Creating IT Futures recruit more veterans to the IT-Ready Apprentice Program, which is launching in 2012.Including the Foundation in the mix of worthy causes just made sense, said Mike Menegay, who oversaw the giving program while he was employed as the company’s VP of Global Alliances."Trend Mi ...

In December of last year I reported that Senate Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell were in talks on how best to approach cybersecurity reform. Senator Reid expressed preference for a comprehensive and holistic approach, and Senator McConnell expressed a preference for a piecemeal approach to reform.So far, it appears that the piecemeal approach has prevailed. Senate Staff for the Commerce and Homeland Security Committees have begun floating several provisions of what may ultimate ...

I am quite certain this week will go down as a milestone for the Internet.  For several weeks opposition against the Stop Online Privacy Act and the Senate version Protect IP Act started snowballing and culminated into a day of protest by some of the Internet’s biggest companies, such as Wikipedia, Google, and Reddit to name a few. The protest called for a day of online blackouts.  Wikipedia shut down access to its website, and Google added a blackout banner over its iconic Google search engine. ...

Just a few years ago, I was looking at a booth filled with the latest “consumer-oriented” products from Apple and several other manufacturers, when a solution provider friend of mine noted how odd it was that this company was displaying at an IT distributor event. While iPods and similar devices seemed out of place at a conference filled with IT resellers, the traffic through the booth was strong and the sales team seemed to be deeply engaged in discussions with attendees all day long.So why wou ...

Takeaway of the week is the smart job seeker never discards an opportunity to network, learn and impress, whether it’s an industry event or a chance meeting with a peer. On other fronts, more good news forecast on the IT job front with the ever-conjoined dose of not-so-great news in tow. IT Conference as Career Builder With the right amount of planning and effort, participation in IT events can become a valuable asset in a prospective job seeker’s portfolio. As networking and social media t ...

The old 80/20 rule – you know, 20 percent of your business produces 80 percent of your revenue – seems like one of the IT channel’s laws of nature. As sure as rivers flow to the sea, most IT vendors commit the majority of their budget, resources and focus to the 15 to 20 percent of partners that drive the most revenue. These are the relationships with the greatest vendor engagement – strong channel programs, training and education platforms, industry insight, peer-to-peer events, and so on.Meanw ...

Takeaway of the week seems to be a rather clear theme, however coincidental, of U.S. government rallying cries on behalf of technology as the guiding light, whether it be in the form of research, education, cybersecurity or healthcare. Could this be a harbinger of better things to come for this sector of the job market in the still-formative year? U.S. Gov’t Report: Fed Tech Ed Key to Compete In another positive sign for those seeking employment in the technical sector, a new report rel ...

A program that trains and places new IT workers in six-month apprenticeships is two steps closer to reality. Just before the holidays, the Foundation's staff traveled to Minneapolis-St. Paul and Cincinnati to meet with potential employers and non-profit partners in those cities about the Foundation’s new IT-Ready Apprentice Program.Charles Eaton (Executive Director), Pamela Green (Board Member), Colleen Robbins (Dir. of Development), and Amy Spear (Program Manager)The response was overwhelmingly ...

A look at the week of January 17 in public advocacy for the IT channel:  This week, the Department of Defense announced that budget cuts would focus on troops rather than cyber technology.  Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel announced a new roadmap for government mobile technology purchases and use.  Some officials believe that increasing the role of governments in cyberspace could spell disaster for the Internet.Cybersecurity May Escape DoD Budget Cuts — President Obama is balancing the need to count ...

Almost all businesses go through periods of stagnation. That doesn’t mean the companies become unprofitable or experience sales declines, but less emphasis seems to be placed on new organizational activities. It’s a natural occurrence, as owners and managers struggle to keep up with the needs of their growing clientele, there often isn’t enough time (or the urgency) to focus on the future.After several years of rapid expansion, a number of managed services professionals are experiencing similar ...

Takeaway of the week seems to be a rather clear theme, however coincidental, of U.S. government rallying cries on behalf of technology as the guiding light, whether it be in the form of research, education, cybersecurity or healthcare. Could this be a harbinger of better things to come for this sector of the job market in the still-formative year?   U.S. Gov’t Report: Fed Tech Ed Key to Compete In another positive sign for those seeking employment in the technical sector, a new report r ...

The IRS just released an update of its “tax gap” estimate, last revised in 2006 for the 2001 tax year.  This study found that in 2006 lost tax revenues amounted to $450 billion, up from $345 billion in 2001.  The “tax gap” is an important budget item as it represents the IRS’ estimate of the difference in tax that should be collected and that which is actually collected.   Of course, the causes of the tax gap are (i) nonfiling, (ii) underreporting and (iii) underpayment.The single largest compon ...