CompTIA Blog

Just when you thought the good times were back again, Cisco comes out with an earnings report and forecast that don’t exactly instill confidence in the tech world. That’s just one of the big stories in the Channel-Lands this week, and thankfully not all the headlines are grim. Cisco Earnings Shake Tech Confidence Cisco Systems has long stood as bellweather of the tech market’s health, so it came as no surprise when Wall Street analysts were spooked by the networking company&rsq ...

As a person starting a small business, I know first-hand the difficulties of getting started. When you conceive of a venture, you think of all the important stuff: products, customers, operating model, sales model, revenue targets, staffing, responsibilities and resources. That’s where I started when I founded The 2112 Group and Channelnomics. Often overlooked are the little things – particularly forms and legal documents.A new benefit for CompTIA members is a rich library of legal document temp ...

Is there no stopping the juggernaut known as Apple? Apparently not the old fashion way through innovation and superior products to market. The continued ascent of Apple is driving numerous lawsuits, alliances and potential mergers. The impact on the Channel-Lands is potentially enormous. Microsoft, Adobe Start DatingThe long wait is nearly over. Next week will bring the launch of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft’s best hope for competing against Apple in the increasingly lucrative mobile handheld mark ...

As states seek to maintain or expand both their tax base and collections, we’ve noted increasing and novel attempts to tax interstate transactions.  No less than the U.S. Supreme Court, however, has held that the predicate that for a state to tax a non-resident individual or business, the individual or business must have a real physical presence in the state.  Commonly, physical presence has been interpreted as having an office or place of business in the state, or employing workers that operate ...

Earlier this week, CompTIA released this interesting little statistic: 55 percent of businesses have a comprehensive, written IT security policy. Think about that for a moment. The statistic means that roughly one-half of all other organizations do not have a security policy in place.October is National Cybersecurity Awareness month, a celebration conceived nearly a decade ago to elevate the level of understanding of Internet and computer security threats. The idea behind this awareness month is ...

A look at the week of October 4, 2010, in public advocacy for the IT channelPresident Obama proclaimed October as “National Cybersecurity Awareness Month” to alert and educate the public about cybersecurity. The discovery of the Stuxnet virus delivered a wake-up call to government and industry officials as to the broad implications and potential dangers of a malware attack.  Medical software companies are looking to the recent national mandate for electronic medical records as a turning point in ...

The session Channel Execs Predict the Future (21 October at 11:30-12:15) is sure to be one of the most popular sessions at the upcoming CompTIA EMEA Member Conference 21-20 October at the Radisson Edwardian Heathrow Hotel.The panel, moderated by CRN editor Sara Yirrell, covers what leading channel players think is hot, happening and coming down the pike: cloud computing, green IT, healthcare IT, security, storage and much more. We asked the panelists — Ray Barber from Kaseya, Tim Black from Inte ...

National Public Radio recently aired an hour-long program devoted to the debate of one simple question: “Whose world are we living in – Apple or Google?” The implications of this question to the channel are significant on many levels. Here’s a hint: consumerization.The premise of the news show, “On Point”, is that these two titans are at the pinnacle of two technology philosophies and business models. Apple sits atop a closed-development, device-driven and application-powered ecosystem. Google, ...

Channel-Lands was rocked by HP’s choice for new CEO; it wasn’t an obvious pick by a long-shot. Also in this week, Microsoft renewed its efforts to measure partner and customer satisfaction, Stuxnet proved the malware threat continues to evolve, and Skype is making sound waves in the channel.HP Gets a New Boss, Herr ApothekerThe list of potential successors for Mark Hurd’s chief executive post at Hewlett-Packard was long and included several industry luminaries. Inside HP, Personal Systems Group ...

A friend of mine (in his early thirties and in good health by all appearances) recently went in for his annual medical checkup, where his physician notified him that his cholesterol was dangerously high. Without the intervention of his doctor, he would likely have faced serious health problems at some point in the future. But a few simple changes in his lifestyle reversed the condition, putting him back on a path of good health. In much the same manner, a recent routine trip to my mechanic resul ...

A look at the week of September 28, 2010, in public advocacy for the IT channelThis week, the Small Business Lending Bill became law with President Obama’s signature on Monday.  The Senate is now moving forward on cybersecurity, drafting a compromise bill of the two competing proposals.  Also, Microsoft has been pushing the government to reconsider a decades-old law that may be holding back cloud computing.  Despite the end of the economic recession, tech hiring is slow to rebound.Obama Signs $3 ...

Last year, Andy Havens, a former airman with the U.S. Air Force, took his first step to making his dream of an IT career a reality. He had read on Military.com that the CompTIA Educational Foundation’s Creating Futures program gave free training to military veterans. “This was an opportunity beyond belief for me since I really wanted to get into the IT field. I have been fascinated and intrigued by computers and their application to real world needs since I had taken a programming class in colle ...

Attendees of the next EMEA IT Services and Support Community meeting can expect a packed agenda with a host of critical and industry-advancing topics. On October 20th, as part of the two-day CompTIA EMEA Member Conference, executives from a variety of IT businesses will gather to not only discuss important IT services issues, but to lay the foundation for the tools, programs and other initiatives that will address those concerns for the IT channel.Who attends the EMEA IT Services and Support Com ...

We are less than a month away from the 2010 CompTIA EMEA Member Conference. I can’t believe it has been a year since we last got together and I for one am looking forward to the new insights from vendors and resellers, as well as the latest from our certification partners. The conference begins on Wednesday, October 20, with our Education 2 Careers Academic Conference as well as a series of community meetings and private sponsor events. Wednesday highlights include:Opening E2C keynote with autho ...

You couldn’t miss the Vu TelePresence booth at the Channel Partners Conference in Washington, D.C. last week. It practically blocked the entrance to the exhibit hall. And, being a telepresense vendor, it has the standard 50-inch flat panel running a live, high-def feed with a couple of India-based engineers.In fact, the interface and equipment weren’t so unfamiliar from similar offerings by larger vendors. The exception: price. The Vu Telepresence solution costs about as much as a conventional s ...