CompTIA Blog

In a previous blog I wrote about increasing the value of a privately-held IT company by building a culture of managing and reducing risk factors. In this post, I’ll cover four more areas where you can reduce uncertainty that will affect your company’s valuation.Adopt long-term contracts with customers and suppliers - A business that has long-term contracts with customers and suppliers is less risky than that of its peers. These contracts are tangible evidence of “stickiness” with business partne ...

TechVoice, a grass roots partnership among CompTIA, TECNA and other interested organizations, continues to grow.  We now have ten organizations that are a part of the TechVoice community and we hope to add more in the New Year.In a sign of the importance of public policy to our TechVoice partners, recently, Donn Morrill, executive director of the New York Technology Council (NYTC), invited CompTIA staff to present to the executive board of the Council.  On December 12th, I traveled to New York C ...

Funding equal to FY 2011 levels for the Perkins Act was included in the “mega-bus” FY2012 appropriations bill that Congress passed as it left for the holiday season.  This is considered a victory for Perkins supporters who pushed back against reductions.  The Perkins Vocational and Technical Education is a crucial component in the career and technical education arsenal – helping States through formula grants to support training and education.   Countless Americans rely on Perkins to ensure they ...

Takeaway of the week is an increasing number of thumbs-up signs for IT job seekers as the calendars prepare to flip another year. While a successful job search often comes down to the right combination of experience, education and luck, it’s becoming more apparent that some roles - whether for technicians or those leading them - might have an upper hand over other roles in the new cloud-based tech world.For the Right Skills, the Tech Boom is RealAn increasing number of people in the know say tod ...

Are you selling, developing or using cloud services and solutions? Validate your cloud knowledge with the new CompTIA Cloud Essentials exam now available.The exponential growth of cloud computing is driving increased demand for IT professionals with cloud expertise. IDC estimates that public cloud IT spending alone will grow from $21.5 billion in 2010 to $72.9 billion in 2015.To certify IT professionals’ readiness for evaluating, planning and executing cloud solutions, CompTIA collaborated with ...

Are you selling, developing or using cloud services and solutions? Validate your cloud knowledge with the new CompTIA Cloud Essentials exam now available. The exponential growth of cloud computing is driving increased demand for IT professionals with cloud expertise. IDC estimates that public cloud IT spending alone will grow from $21.5 billion in 2010 to $72.9 billion in 2015. To certify IT professionals’ readiness for evaluating, planning and executing cloud solutions, CompTIA collaborate ...

The Senate Banking Committee held a hearing on December 1, to consider whether easing the procedures for raising equity capital would impact job growth.  CompTIA submitted testimony for this hearing urging Congress to increase the small issuer exemption and enact crowdfunding.Concerning the small issuer exemption, legislation that passed the House overwhelmingly on November 2 would increase the offering threshold from $5 million up to $50 million.  H.R. 1070, the “Small Company Capital Formation ...

Takeaway of the week is an increasing number of thumbs-up signs for IT job seekers as the calendars prepare to flip another year. While a successful job search often comes down to the right combination of experience, education and luck, it’s becoming more apparent that some roles - whether for technicians or those leading them - might have an upper hand over other roles in the new cloud-based tech world.   For the Right Skills, the Tech Boom is Real An increasing number of people in th ...

Last week, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence unanimously passed out of committee the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2011 (H.R. 3523). The bill would “permit cybersecurity service providers and businesses that operate their own cybersecurity systems to share information related to potential cybersecurity threats with other businesses and the federal government. Such threats include efforts to interfere with a cybersecurity network, or threats involving the the ...

With two weeks left in the 2011 sales season, most solution providers have their plans in place for the first quarter of the New Year—if not for the next twelve months. Since it’s difficult to make a hard close to December business with the holidays, many are already shifting their focus to 2012—and looking for ways to improve their organization.This time of year business is typically a little slower, allowing the management team to reflect on past success and challenges before moving into the n ...

A look at the week of December 12 in public advocacy for the IT channel: This week, members of Congress are looking at innovative ways to fund small businesses.  A cybersecurity bill is making progress in the House Homeland Security subcommittee on cybersecurity.  Federal cloud providers have new security controls from the Obama Administration.Both Parties Invest in Crowdfunding — Even as they continue to spar over taxes, deficit reduction and government regulations, members of Congress are eyei ...

How many generations are in your workplace? New research (HR Magazine, SHRM, May 2001) indicates that the greater the diversity of age groups, the more conflict you may have. This is likely to result in less employee engagement, translating into lower productivity and decreased potential profits.If you are dealing with multiple generations in your workforce, what can you do to address these concerns? Different age groups espouse divergent values depending on what was happening in society when th ...

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of diving deep into the history of the computer industry while researching previous inductees of the IT Industry Hall of Fame. This research is part of the process CompTIA is undertaking to pay proper tribute to those who created and made significant contributions to computer science and the IT channel.  The deeper I dug into the stories, the more amazed I was by adversity and challenges faced by many of these individuals and organizations. Despite ...

Among the top “buzz” words in the IT community are “cloud” and “SMB,” which is seen as no coincidence by those in the IT channel. These two terms are closely tied and both highlight key areas of opportunity for solution providers. Time has demonstrated how cloud benefits extend to businesses of every size, in every industry, but the model has been especially beneficial to small and mid-sized companies.SMB organizations often find themselves battling much larger competitors, businesses that typic ...

Takeaway of the week is an early holiday gift for the IT professional and job seeker alike. More reports, surveys and such are building on the perception that IT pros, especially those with specialty skills such as mainframe, Java and Android programming, will be big-ticket needs for firms in the coming year.2012 Looks Bright for Tech Pros, New Survey SuggestsA new report by Dice.com suggests IT pros can expect a greater demand for their skills and less layoffs in the coming year.The positive hi ...