CompTIA Blog

GFN AG found that many career changers and newcomers to the IT industry didn’t have the extensive previous knowledge for vendor-specific certifications. In their search for a suitable, universally recognized certification, GFN AG soon found exactly what they were looking for: The CompTIA A+ and CompTIA Network+ certifications.

Time and personnel limitations frequently dictate a company’s priorities. That creates a challenge for any solution provider attempting to grow a successful IT services organization. Those shortages not only impede a company’s operations and make it more difficult to focus on their customers’ needs, but they also hinder the strategies and goals outlined in their long-term business plan. With IT channel organizations, that struggle is repeated all too often, which may help expl ...

An overarching theme at CompTIA’s EMEA Member & Partner Conference this year has been defining Big Data and its role across our members’ and partners’ organisations. A panel of experts from across the industry stripped back some of the layers surrounding this all encompassing and often misunderstood area of IT in a session chaired by Carl West, business group director, IT, office and stationery, GfK Retail and Technology UK.  So is big data relevant to small busine ...

Social media expert DK talked about how to embed a social media culture in your organization at CompTIA’s EMEA Member & Partner Conference this year. He argued we’ve moved on from talking about how to blog and tweet. We’ve even moved on from social media strategy. We now need to be talking about a social media culture. And, he stressed, that goes beyond social media marketing. We need to deepen the social media conversation beyond how it can be used as a marketing tool. He ...

John Kaufman discussed the art of differentiation when selling IT and IT training at CompTIA’s EMEA Member & Partner Conference this year. Sales, he said, is not just a financial exchange – it is the art of influencing. We should learn from our everyday interactions with people to become better salespeople. Using clips from the movie Hitch, in which Will Smith plays a suave dating guru, he explained how influencers can differentiate themselves. He urged delegates to remember tha ...

Lawrence Rowley, Funding Manager, City and Guilds, discussed the current funding landscape for training programmes that may incorporate IT work experience, training and certification at CompTIA’s EMEA Member & Partner Conference this year. Rowley said that the UK government’s priorities for skills growth are currently centred around traineeships, apprenticeships and programmes for the unemployed. We’re now seeing a return to protected funding channels for each of these str ...

Tim Harford, Financial Times journalist, Radio 4 presenter and author of the bestselling Undercover Economist delivered the opening keynote on “Innovation and the Art of Good Mistakes” at CompTIA’s EMEA Member & Partner Conference this year. Harford started by explaining marginal improvements – small changes that can make a difference to a business. Here, he praised the IT industry for its successful approach. But he argued that this approach can be too easy, and to ...

At midnight on Thursday, a default on the Federal government’s obligations was averted and the government re-opened after a 16-day shutdown.  Congress agreed to a short-term deal to fund the federal government through January 15th, and extend the debt ceiling to February 7th. So, what does this mean for a tech agenda in the remaining days of 2013?  To answer that question, one should first realize that with Congressional recess and holidays, there are only a little more than 20 w ...

CompTIA and its exam development partner viaForensics are releasing the CompTIA Mobile App Security+ certification today. The exam is designed to validate that mobile application developers have the skills to securely create a native iOS or Android mobile app while also ensuring secure network communications and backend web services.

When virtually everyone claims to sell and support similar services in specific industries, how can businesses set themselves apart from the crowd? Differentiation can be difficult, often requiring significant investments to tailor product offerings and ramp up successful marketing campaigns. That can be a risky venture for any small business, especially where commoditization is already negatively affecting profit margins. While the low price method is one way to differentiate a company’s ...

The Securities and Exchange Commission has re-opened the comment period through November 4 for regulations issued under “the JOBS Act” concerning crowdfunding. Since its release of amendments to Regulation D, Form D and Rule 156 on July 24, concern has been growing in the startup community that the SEC rules go against the spirit of the JOBS Act by requiring additional compliance steps not envisioned in the law. More specifically, the SEC’s rules implementing removal of the ban ...

Just as it is in the rest of society, the IT channel has its own bell curve representing a breadth of personalities and business innovations. At one end are the early adopters; those who jump at every opportunity to experiment with the latest technologies and processes in their businesses, to help their customers, or both. Whether their interest for innovation comes from client necessity or their own curiosity, their cutting edge capabilities become a factor of differentiation that gives them a ...

As major trends like cloud computing, mobility and Big Data continue to dominate technology headlines and channel discussions; there are a number of interesting developments taking place at other levels of the technology universe. Improvements to the most basic building blocks of IT have enabled today’s trends, and tomorrow’s trends will be fueled by the pioneering improvements currently underway: Computing: The end of Moore’s Law has been predicted for at least a decade, but m ...

This morning we awoke to the stark reality that our lawmakers and the president have failed to reach a deal, even in the short-term, to fund the federal government. The first shuttering of government doors in 17 years could go on for several days, if not to the next significant inflection point on the calendar – a vote on raising the debt ceiling, which should come between October 17 and November 1. The fact that the government will continue to pay our military, and that there are separat ...

Given the rapid rate of change and the addition of new players in the cloud market, it’s rare that organizations will understand the entire scope of knowledge that they need to cut through the sales pitches and successfully deploy the cloud solution that is right for them. To address this problem, CompTIA worked with cloud subject matter experts to develop the CompTIA Cloud+ certification exam.