CompTIA Blog

A look at the week of August 23, 2010, in public advocacy for the IT channelThe Office of Management and Budget is looking to scale back $30 billion in high-priority IT projects.  Some small businesses are hoping for passage of a bill that would increase lending and create tax breaks.  In a sign that the economy is improving, many IT professionals are thinking about moving to new companies.  Meanwhile, the Pentagon issued a public warning concerning the Chinese military’s efforts to run clandest ...

Note: This is an addendum to the eight blog entries in which I examine managed services best practices identified in the CompTIA MSP Partners 2010 market research.My favorite baseball team was and always will be the Montreal Expos. They had heart. With one of the lowest payrolls in major league baseball, they had to be smart, where other teams could simply spend. They were quirky – where else in major league baseball was it 99 meters to the right field fence and you could buy a chien chaud (lite ...

More than 1,000 industry leaders were in attendance at our annual Breakaway conference this month in San Antonio. But what? You missed it?We can’t replace the networking that you missed, but we’ll try to update you on the host of the learing opportunities available at the event. The Channel Vanguard Council (CVC), a thought-leadership advisory group to CompTIA, powered two special presentations – transformative revenue models and rethinking sales compensation plans. The idea behind these session ...

Head-scratching. That’s the best way to describe the surprise acquisition of security vendor McAfee by chipmaker Intel. Sure, an imminent McAfee had been perennial watercooler scuttlebutt for the past few years, but everyone – and I mean everyone – thought it would be Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Microsoft or EMC.The market reaction has been swift. Since Intel paid a premium, McAfee’s stock soared nearly 50 percent on the announced deal; Intel’s stock swooned slightly. Partners have been seeking answ ...

Mid-August is the time of year many of us in Channel-Lands long for throughout the year. Moderate weather, a little time left before school starts for the kids, and everyone taking their foot off the business pedal just enough to get everyone a breather. Things seemed quiet this week until a bomb in the form of a massive surprise acquisition went off. And while unemployment woes and the economy struggles to regain its footing, there’s plenty of good news from IT vendor earnings reports. And ther ...

I’ve been a writer/journalist for the better part of 25 years. While I consider myself has having a gift for stringing words together, I am under no illusions that I can do it alone. No matter where I work, I consistently say that my best friend is a copy editor, since he/she not only will pick up my mistakes but help improve the quality of my work. One of my favorite sayings (which I believed I coined) is, “Even Jesus had an editor” (you know, the New Testament was written after Jesus’ death).I ...

Summer blockbuster movies bring together two of my favorite things: the vacation season and great cinema. One reason I love this movie genre is the escape it provides from the everyday routine and all its challenges. Time travel is a frequent occurence in blockbuster movies and it's also a great illustration of a business tool we'd all love to have avaialble. Whether the cinematic feature is Terminator IX, or classics like Star Trek or Back to the Future, the hero gets out of a sticky situation ...

Philanthropic representatives from a dozen leading IT companies met with the CompTIA Educational Foundation as part of its first-ever IT Philanthropy Summit last week during Breakaway. The invitation-only summit provided participants the opportunity to leverage and collaborate with other leaders to make all industry philanthropic programs more effective.The attendees represented AMD, Applied Materials, CDW, Dell, IBM, Intel, iSys, Microsoft, SalesForce.com Foundation, Symantec, VMware and Xerox. ...

What is the most expensive security breach ever? Before you answer, read the rest of this blog (trust me, you’re probably wrong).According to a recent report by the Ponemon Institute, the mean corporate loss to IT security breaches last year was $3.8 million. During the four-week study period, participating companies reported being the subjected to at least 50 known attacks. And these companies reported taking as long as 14 days at a cost of nearly $18,000 per day to remediate a security breach. ...

The current transition of doctors’ offices and hospitals from paper to the digital realm is a key challenge for our industry, but it’s also an opportunity.   How can IT professionals help physicians enter the digital age safely and with the least amount of disruption? CompTIA President and CEO Todd Thibodeaux discussed healthcare IT in a recent opinion-editorial on the San Antonio Express-News website, pointing out that without reliable, knowledgeable and entrepreneurial ...

“Know the specialties!” Patti Dodgen, CEO of healthcare systems integrator Hielix, told VARs who attended the Breakaway session: “Building Your HIT Blueprint – Assessing the IT Needs of a Healthcare Provider to Become a Trusted Advisor.” The session was “powered by” CompTIA’s Healthcare IT Community, and each participant received a “Healthcare IT: Workflow Overview” pamphlet that provided critical fundamentals for VARs to learn in thi ...

 The Final Day at MSP University Bootcamp As the MSP University Bootcamp (part of this week's CompTIA Breakaway event) in San Antonio came to a close, healthcare IT took center stage between an interactive panel of practice and technology experts, and a presentation from HP. Complementing both of those sessions was a presentation on developing a motivating sales compensation plans that will help you meet and exceed your business goals. Chris Mertens, Vice President of HP PSG US Healthca ...

Gary Fish founded his company, FishNet Security, 1996 as an integrator of hardware and software security products. In 14 years, he grew the company from $0 to more than $300 million in annual revenue, 400 employees, and more than 25,000 active and inactive customers.  Today, he’s one of the most sought after and influential security solution providers in the industry.In many conversations I have with Fish about his company’s success, he’ll say that growth is not an option – it’s an imperative. W ...

Between managed IT services and the ever-changing needs of business customers, a switch to consultative sales is increasingly important for today’s solution providers. In a highly interactive discussion during CompTIA Breakaway, a packed room of solution providers quizzed the expert panel on transitioning to the new sales philosophy.Joining session moderator Tricia Wurts, President of Wurts & Associates, Inc. were well-known and respected industry veterans: Bob Penland, CTO of TruMethods, LL ...

Increased interest in cloud computing creates more opportunity for solution providers and vendors to be partners, a panel of vendor executives said at CompTIA Breakaway on Wednesday.Executives on the “power panel” from Microsoft, Google, Intel and Cisco spoke to attendees about partnering opportunities, markets poised for growth, and business strategy.Microsoft is seeing a number of businesses looking into IT solutions that weren’t economically feasible for them with an on-premise model but is w ...