CompTIA Blog

During the IT Services & Support Community meeting at CompTIA’s Annual Member Meeting this morning, Matthew Poyiadgi, senior vice president, global sales, CompTIA, showcased a host of ideas to help IT service providers jumpstart their social media efforts.“Social media invites customers to have a say,” said Poyiadgi. “Stop thinking ‘campaigns to our customers’ and start thinking ‘conversations with our customers’.”Matthew Poyiadgi of CompTIAIn showing examples from good social media practice ...

Today, there are more than 600,000 open IT jobs in the United States, making IT training and education as critical as ever in building a strong workforce. The current economic environment has nurtured continuing developments in the IT industry. As new technologies emerge, the industry is looking to organizations to develop and drive new talent to fill those open jobs.The common theme for driving this talent is collaboration. It will be the collaboration of agencies, public and private organizati ...

While the United States government is faced with a potential shut down this week, when a new budget in eventually passed, small businesses can profit from knowing how to navigate their way through the red tape. That task sounds daunting, but a basic understanding of the shortcuts will allow VARs and MSPs to cultivate business from a number of agencies in the federal government. Our Small Business Owners Community members were given an educational primer on how to accomplish that in their CompTIA ...

The tremendous advancements in IT are driving new opportunities for the certification and training industry, from healthcare IT and cloud computing to data storage and IT security. There’s a natural relationship between the end-user demand for these services and their suppliers: service providers and other technology firms. Despite the down economy and related hurdles that slowed certifications and training over the past couple of years, the industry outlook for 2011 is rosy—primarily due to the ...

During today’s CompTIA Annual Member Meeting in Chicago, Tim Herbert, VP, market research, CompTIA, addressed our relatively new Unified Communications (UC) Community and delved into the latest study data concerning customer and service provider perspectives on the market.CompTIA’s research looked at which UC technologies are customers using, what the customers want to do with the technologies and what is driving their decisions.  For the service providers at the meeting, Herbert also spoke on h ...

A look at the week of April 4 in public advocacy for the IT channel   Cybersecurity experts are beginning to feel that attackers have an edge on the government and are stressing the importance or collaborating with the private sector in fending them off.  H-1B visa reform is being pressed by tech companies, despite the persistently high US unemployment rate.  This week, the VA is taking steps to transfer its leading EMR system to an open source format. Cyber Attackers Have ...

Finally the Senate voted today 87 to 12 to repeal the new 1099 tax provision reporting requirement, which would have required all businesses to file a form 1099 when paying any business or individual $600 or more for goods or services; this provision was set to go into effect in 2012.After much political maneuvering, Senate Leader Harry Reid agreed to take up the House-passed version of the repeal, H.R. 4. The Senate’s approval of the House-passed legislation (without amendment) means that it no ...

New Resources Available to Help Build IT Business Success! Tools are extremely instrumental in helping all of us accomplish our goals—on a daily, if not hourly basis. We often take for granted how many implements, templates and devices we use and how beneficial they are to our personal and business ambitions. Nothing illustrates this more to me than packing for a deep-woods camping trip, where everything we need to survive for a few days must be carried into the forest in our pack or on our pers ...

Rep. Jim Langevin the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee of Threats and Capabilities held a roundtable discussion last week with the industry to discuss his bill the Executive Cyberspace Coordination Act of 2011, which he introduced on March 16.  Congressman Langevin stated that the bill would  “establish a National Office for Cyberspace to evaluate and enforce requirements for federal agencies to protect themselves and the public, make certain that the government buys the most advanced and secu ...

On March 25, the Office of National Coordinator at the Department of Health and Human Services announced the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan, which was last updated in 2008.  The plan is being updated in order to reflect the impact of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act and the Affordable Care Act.  The plan focuses on implementing key healthcare IT policies over the next five years through coordination between government agencies, ...

It was back at the tail end of 2009 that I first became aware of CompTIA and its presence in the U.K. Like many people working within the IT industry, I was familiar with CompTIA primarily through their certifications. I’d passed my own CompTIA A+, CompTIA Network+ and other similar exams at the start of my career and know many colleagues who have worked toward these qualifications too.But it wasn’t until I sat down with Matthew Poyadigi and William Linard of CompTIA UK that I became aware of Co ...

While it’s not really news to most, the CompTIA Annual Member Meeting (AMM) kicks off next week (April 6-7) at the Swissôtel in downtown Chicago. This second annual event is packed with educational sessions, collaborative community meetings and a lot of peer networking. For vendors, associations and solutions providers, these types of events have become critical to their long term goals, between the complexity of new business models and the rapid advancements in technology.Without the collaborat ...

CompTIA has fielded an annual security study for eight years. In the most recent study, 49 percent of firms rate security as a top priority, a significant jump from 35 percent of firms in 2008. Other CompTIA studies focusing on industry verticals or technology trends show that security concerns are a common thread through all markets. The IT industry has been talking about security for a long time, and the impacts are well known.For all the focus, ‘though, security breaches are still common and ...

A look at the week of March 28 in public advocacy for the IT channel   The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT has released a strategic plan to carry out mandates in the HITECH Act.  The Pentagon has revised its cyber budget and is now asking for an extra billion dollars to protect its networks.  Sen. Robert Menendez has sponsored an amendment asking the Obama Administration to study the 1099 repeal. Healthcare IT Strategic Plan Unveiled — A draft of the ...

Our Get IT Video Contest asked IT professionals who are CompTIA certified to submit a 60-second video about how they’ve used their CompTIA-certified skills to solve an IT problem, get a raise or a promotion or get a job. This social sweepstakes video contest was the first of its kind offered to the large pool of CompTIA certified individuals.Michael Sileno took 1st place in our Get IT video contest.Michael Sileno, owner and president of Stryker Computer Solutions in Greensboro, N.C., claimed the ...