CompTIA Blog

MSP Partners has just published its 2010 IPED managed services research and education courses and the emerging industry trends are truly compelling! The findings I will be discussing in this article are based on research conducted in December 2009 and January 2010. This extensive survey included thousands of solution providers and resulted in findings to a 97% confidence level. The top four trends identified are:1.    The managed services market mirrored the overall IT market in performance, but ...

I’ve been involved in many discussions on IT security applications over the years, but today’s conference call with the IT Security Special Interest Group truly hit home on the business issues many channel providers face.  Many VARs and MSPs offer security applications to their clients, but could use help developing this expertise and in transitioning from a reactive focus on security to a proactive approach. During the call, Fernando Quintero, VP of Channel Operations for McA ...

CompTIA’s president and CEO, Todd Thibodeaux, shares the vision behind the recent reorganization of CompTIA’s public policy department. Listen here: CompTIA_Public_Policy[podcast]http://www.comptia.org/media/CompTIA_Public_Policy.mp3[/podcast]

I was at the RSA Conference in San Francisco last week and was amazed to see the seemingly infinite number of vendors in the security space. Of course, all the usual companies were there, like McAfee, Symantec, Microsoft, CA, Cisco, Trend Micro, Kaspersky, Sophos and ESET, with  nonstop demonstrations and, of course, tchotchkes.  You can always use another t-shirt or keychain, right?I had the opportunity to interact with a wide range of folks while walking the show floor, working the booth, atte ...

I’ve been working with IT services and support executives as part of CompTIA for the past eight years.  In that time I have learned that what most of you want usually comes down to some very basic items. Indeed, some of the best things in life are actually quite simple. Industry collaboration is seldom rocket science (incidentally my brother works at Raytheon with actual rocket scientists and yes, they are geeks…but I digress). Industry collaboration, however, is quite useful because no one want ...

In the IT channel today IT services opportunities continue to grow and technology providers continue to transform their operations to be service driven. Many technology providers attribute 30- 50% of their revenue to services. On average, IT Services and Support Executive Forum members state that between 50-80% of their total net profit margin comes from services. With solution providers, VARs’ and MSPs’ dependency on IT services being this significant, it is essential to measure and benchmark s ...

This is the second part of my commentary, “Why Managed Services.”  In the last article, I examined the reasons that managed services are good for the SMB end customer.  In this piece I will discuss why managed services mean better business for the solution provider.Every once and a while, I step back and marvel at the way IT has changed my life. Thanks to constant innovation, my house is a veritable museum of advances in IT.  In one corner of my house, my CD collection sits gathering dust, never ...

Just about every water cooler discussion I’ve ever been a part of on the future of technology inevitably leads to mention of flying cars and/or robots. People can’t seem to resist criticizing the state of technology for not providing certain innovations that were “promised” years ago, or dreaming about a futuristic world where helper robots free us from the doldrums of work and flying cars free us from the annoyances of traffic. It wasn’t long ago when a discussion of the “future” would mean a d ...

Ready to match shots with a professional mini-golfer?  During CompTIA’s Annual Member Meeting, you can match shots with George McLeod, the second highest ranked professional mini-golfer, as determined by point totals on the U.S. ProMiniGolf Association national ranking list. CompTIA members and technology leaders will network and help fund training for the disadvantaged and disabled during the CompTIA Educational Foundation’s First Annual Creating Futures Charity Miniature Gol ...

At the recent EU IT Services and Support Executive Forum, David Milot from Unisys started off discussions with a presentation on the revolution of cloud computing. The cloud has been a hot topic, but there still seems to be a slightly fragmented approach to the subject. How can managed service providers, logistics companies and OEM's best utilize this delivery technology? According to research statistics and those in the room, security is the biggest fear around deploying cloud computing solu ...

This is a two-part article on the business case for managed services.  In the first part I will examine why managed services means better service for the SMB end customer.  In the second part, I will discuss why managed services means better business for the solution provider.To start today’s discussion-- and to enter into the mind of an SMB end customer-- I’d like to tell you the story about my broken furnace on a cold November day in Canada. Being the resourceful person I am, I confidently tur ...

As I see it, one of the most essential ingredients of a successful managed services operation is the services level agreement (SLA).  In fact, it’s so crucial that it’s part of our standard definition for managed services that I mentioned in my last blog post. CompTIA Managed Services Definition:The ongoing management, monitoring, and maintenance of networks, software, hardware, and related IT services by an external organization. Managed services are often marked by detailed service level agree ...

There has been a lot of talk lately about the cloud….pick up just about any tech journal, business publication, or even the newspaper (online or even the old print format!) and there are articles and analysis discussing everything moving to “the cloud.”  What does that really mean?  Is the end of the desktop/laptop, as we know it today, coming sooner than we thought?  Is it all about being connected 24/7 so that no applications reside locally anymore? Accordin ...

With a flurry of activities underway and planned for 2010, the Managed IT Services Executive Forum convened for a conference call to reconcile all the undertakings. The discussion included the latest updates on the MSP Partners program and a multitude of new resources being developed for the managed services community. As many of you know, CompTIA acquired MSP Partners late last year and brought the program under the fold of this managed services community.   Jim Hamilton, Senior Dir ...

Many SMB companies experience enterprise issues, they just have smaller budgets and fewer employees than their larger brethren. Smaller solution providers experience similar challenges, but also may need resources or guidance to create a valued and long-term business. Based on those requests from the IT provider community, CompTIA launched a new group to develop and make those resources available to members: the Small Business Owners Special Interest Group. The group is off to a great start, jus ...