CompTIA Blog

When Obama was elected president, there was a slight kerfuffle about whether he would be allowed to continue to use his Blackberry. As you may or not know, BlackBerrys are the lifeblood of congressional communication, and during his tenure in the senate (and probably before that), he became addicted. As the story goes, he was able to keep his Blackberry with some additional encryption and even picked up an iPad along the way. But those are just gadgets. What I’m really waiting for is the nation’ ...

Hiring forecasts are typically done years, not months, in advance. How then does one factor the twists and turns of real life into the mix? By having long-range predictions and latest studies at your fingertips to make informed career decisions. Which is exactly what we’ve tried to do here. As 2011 stutter-steps to a conclusion, good news can be found on balance sheets of some of the largest and most influential IT companies in the U.S.: income and revenue remains high with signs for continued ...

The tech world watched yesterday as Apple held a keynote to announce several new products. Most analysts were expecting the iPhone 5 to be revealed, but the major iPhone reveal was an iPhone 4S. Although this device has some significant upgrades—such as the ability to function on either GSM or CDMA networks—most reviewers were disappointed in the lack of a major revision to the product line. However, looking past the specific device that was announced, there are three themes for the near future ...

A look at the week of October 3 in public advocacy for the IT channel: This week, a new report by the Government Accountability Office found that sensitive data in a number of federal agencies remains greatly at risk.  The U.S. remains the most competitive nation for IT despite economic troubles.  The Obama Administration has designated October as National Cybersecurity Awareness month and will be conducting events across the country to promote cyber safety.GAO: Federal Data at Cyber Risk — Sens ...

CompTIA member Linda Lynch is president and co-owner of the KI Technology Group, an East Lansing, Mich.-based technology consulting organization. She has been an advocate of the channel, a mentor to many in the IT community and was appointed to the CompTIA Board of Directors in January this year.As if Lynch wasn’t busy enough building and leading a successful technology consulting firm, she’s also been extremely active in her neighborhood. She serves on the board of Capital Area United Way, is a ...

For every phrase which begins with the words “the economy may have stalled, but...” seems to end with positive news for the IT industry. It’s a new take on an old adage: “If you don’t have anything nice to say about the economy, at least say something nice about the IT labor market.”Demand for Managed Security Services Remains HighA frenzied shift to use more mobile devices and cloud computing together with an increased number of security threats worldwide means more work in the coming years for ...

For every phrase which begins with the words “the economy may have stalled, but...” seems to end with positive news for the IT industry. It’s a new take on an old adage: “If you don’t have anything nice to say about the economy, at least say something nice about the IT labor market.” Demand for Managed Security Services Remains High A frenzied shift to use more mobile devices and cloud computing together with an increased number of security threats worldwide means more work in the coming years ...

The week is full of mobility news, from the latest iPhone launch date to the upcoming rollout of Amazon’s new tablet. But why is there so much fascination for solution providers and channel vendors? On the surface, the biggest opportunities seem to be in the sale of the consumer products, getting the latest devices and cool apps in the hands of millions of adoring fans.This basically breaks down into two camps, the Apple enthusiasts and the fans of everything else. That’s not a slam on the compa ...

When you hear cries from voters for their politicians to take bold steps to meet challenges, I’m never sure what that means, and I find myself almost always being disappointed. Here's my take. I'll frame it in the context of what is and isn’t bold from one man’s perspective.On corporate taxes…Bold is the wholesale elimination of the corporate tax. “Eliminate the tax, eliminate the loopholes” has the result of eliminating 90 percent of the tax distortions inherent in the system. While you’re at i ...

CompTIA member Scott Barlow is vice president of sales and product management for Reflexion Networks Inc, a hosted email service vendor headquartered in Woburn, Mass. As a contributor and leader of several CompTIA Communities over the years, he brings a wealth of knowledge and extensive partner program experience to CompTIA's initiatives for advancing the IT industry. Barlow understands the solution provider business model and enthusiastically promotes programs he believes will benefit not only ...

A look at the week of September 26 in public advocacy for the IT channel: This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved three controversial data breach bills.  Spending cuts might limit the government’s ability to transition to cloud computing and take advantage of long-term cost savings.  A new Senate bill aims to stop large firms from pirating federal contracts meant for small businesses.Panel Approves Data-Breach Bills Despite Partisan Rancor — The Senate Judiciary Committee approved thr ...

For the first time at our CompTIA EMEA Members Conference, we’re creating three educational tracks to make sure every VAR, vendor, training partner and academy can get the latest trend and technology information that is impacting their particular part of the IT channel.On the training partner side, hear about CompTIA’s soon-to-be-released cloud certificate, tips and tricks for growing your training business, the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), and how social networking trends are i ...

The paperless office is an idea that has been talked about ever since the personal computer became a mainstay of the modern office. The idea was raised in a notable 1975 Business Week article titled “The Office of the Future.” Some parts of the article are very prescient and the authors predicted that by 1995 technology would exist that would let users access documents at the touch of a button, eliminating the need for paper. However, paper continues to play a very large part in the workplace.Co ...

Earlier this week, Facebook made one of the most costly mistakes a business can make—forgetting who its audience is. Whether the company was hoping to emulate the information stream of Google +, or just following their own unique direction, the changes they made to the popular social media site could prove to be a major misstep. With a streaming newsfeed and subscriber options that Facebook added in one fell swoop (with no notice ahead of time), it was a bit overwhelming for many of its members. ...

The social platform wars heated up this week, as both Facebook and Google+ launched new features to their sites. Google+ announced changes to their Hangouts video chat feature, introduced a search function within the platform (which seemed like a late addition from the leader in online search), and dropped the requirement for invitations to join the service. Facebook gave its users Smart Lists to organize their friends, rolled out the ability to subscribe to interesting people they don’t persona ...