These Are Exciting Times for the CompTIA Emerging Technology Community

This is set to be a great year for the CompTIA communities. At the beginning of the year we officially started our Emerging Technology Community so that our CompTIA members would have access to a community where you can get a better understanding of what emerging technology means for you and your business. Find out how these emerging technologies could impact your industry and learn how to distinguish all this from the shiny new things you shouldn’t be overly concerned about.

The community’s focus is on helping members navigate a path to emerging technologies that will have a near-term business opportunity and indicate potential profit margins. We also endeavour to guide you to the next emerging technology coming down the line that would be most beneficial to you, our members.

As a group of emerging technology thought-leaders, this community will seek to continually identify emerging technologies that can help transform business operations, create business opportunities, overcome challenges, leverage new routes to market and pave the road for the future business of technology.

We will be the industry headlights for emerging technology. We will continually discuss and analyse industry trends to build and maintain an emerging tech roadmap, assess each significant technology’s impact, and provide actionable guidance on its profitable adoption and implementation.

So far, the community has already produced a top 10 list of emerging technologies. Download the infographic here.

We are pleased, privileged and proud to have a superb group of nine Executive Council Leaders. Learn all about them here. And without the backing and input of our Emerging Technology Champions this community would not have been launched. The following are our champions:

• Bill Badnaruk, Drone Specialist, UAV Consultant, Account Manager, Stampede Global
• Meredith Caram, Assistant Vice President, AT&T
• Ted Cole, Founder, Twelve Leadership Consulting LLC
• Paul Cronin, Board of Directors, IT Careers Foundation
• Len DiCostanzo, Senior Vice President, Channel Development, Autotask
• TC Doyle, Senior Content Director, Channel Brands, Penton
• Suzanne Edwards, Head of Education and Qualification Design and CEO, Enlighten
• Stephen Estabrooks, Principal, Janus Consulting
• Mike Haines, Director of Worldwide Channel Incentive Strategy and Program Design, Microsoft
• Joe Infante, Consultant, Catapult Acquisition Corporation
• Zak Karsan, CEO, Vault America
• Kimberly King, Vice President Global Partners and Channels, Progress
• Drew Lydecker, Co-Founder and President, AVANT Communications
• Jay McBain, Principal Analyst, Global Channels, Forrester
• Julia Moiseeva, Director, Fin Test
• Marc Monday, Vice President, Partnerships and Ecosystems, SAP
• Alessandro Porro, Senior Vice President, International Sales, Ipswitch, Inc.
• Raja Singh, Principal Solutions Architect, Verizon
• Alan Smithson, CEO, MetaVRse
• Michael Swailes, Director Business Development, Cisco Systems 
• David Tan, CTO, CHIPS
• Scott Zahl, Vice President, Advanced Computing Division, Ingram Micro

Industry Executives Are Feeling Confident Heading Into 2018

These are exciting times. Last year, CompTIA’s IT Industry Business Confidence Index (BCI) recorded the best year in its history. The high-water mark occurred during Q4, when the index crossed the 70-point threshold for the first time ever.

Heading into Q1 2018, the BCI fell off its record high just a bit but remains in lofty territory. All components of the index are performing well, including the rating of the economy, which has been a drag on the aggregate rating in years past.

As commonly seen in the BCI, executives from large- and medium-sized technology companies are most bullish on the state of the market and their companies’ prospects. The smaller and micro-size firms, which may be more sensitive to local conditions or have a less diverse base of customers, lag slightly, but are still solidly positive.