
By Sarah Morgan
CompTIA, one of the world’s biggest IT industry associations is widening access to its resources by making them available to registered users, at no cost. Why? “To have a greater impact on the IT industry.”
Membership
reinvented
The aim of CompTIA’s new initiative is to enable anyone
interested in IT and the tech industry to access research results, training
guides and business tools without charge. Nancy Hammervik, senior vice
president for industry relations at CompTIA said: “We no longer want to be the
industry’s best kept secret, but its best-kept resource, instead”.
High expectations
One of CompTIA’s missions is to drive workforce development
and the company hopes that with its new access model, the number of professionals
seeking training and certification will increase. The company expects the
individual involvement of professionals to increase to 20,000 in the next few
years. Considering that the initial soft launch already attracted 5,000
professionals, the expectations seem realistic.
CEO of CompTIA Todd Thibodeaux said: “The IT industry is
changing rapidly, and channel partners, as well as IT professionals, business
owners, and consumers, are eager for real-world insights and resources that
will help them make more informed decisions and offer guidance on the future of
IT. CompTIA is uniquely positioned to be that voice and resource, which is why
we’re opening up the vault to registered users and introducing greater
exclusivity and value for our members.”
Premier membership
The new premier membership is open only to distributors,
vendors, and other "companies serving the IT channel". Existing CompTIA members automatically become premier
members as of April 1. Premier membership allows users priority access to
CompTIA training and education resources, “exclusive business tools” and
services. It also provides unlimited, complimentary CompTIA event
registrations. The extension of the premier membership will cost £150
annually. Vendors will be required to pay between £375-£3,000 per year, depending
on their size.
CompTIA training
with Firebrand
Firebrand is an Authorized Training Partner of CompTIA. This
means that we have access to the latest official curriculum, and the best
instructors. We offer an ever-growing offering selection of CompTIA
certifications, including these ones.
About the Author:
Sarah writes for Firebrand Training on a number of IT related topics. This includes exams, training, certification trends, project management, certification, careers advice and the industry itself. Sarah has 11 years of experience in the IT industry.