Bull`s Eye Awards: Channel Community of the Year - CHALLENGER
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Computing Technology Industry Association
If there’s one channel community to keep watch on, it’s CompTIA. When Todd
Thibodeaux took over the CEO’s post in the
summer of 2008, he promised to overhaul the stodgy association of resellers and
solution providers. A year into his tenure, he kicked off a phalanx of new
initiatives that has pushed CompTIA into a renaissance.
CompTIA is best known for its technical certifications, regional specialty
events and annual Breakaway conference. CompTIA is looking to move beyond its
core offerings to act as a true community-based advocacy and enablement
association. It’s launched a number of initiatives to form communities of
resellers and solution providers around specific expert domains such as
security, managed services, cloud computing and health care. It’s strengthened
and continues to push its new accreditations in security and managed services.
And it's formed a political action committee to lobby federal and state
lawmakers on issues that affect solution provider businesses.
As a matter of full disclosure, CompTIA and Channel Insider are partners. No
bias from our relationship was taking into consideration for this award.
However, the strength of Channel Insider’s relationship with CompTIA is
testament to the revolution it is going through. Channel Insider and CompTIA
partnered to form the Channel Vanguard Council, a group of vendor and solution
provider executives who are working to resolve vexing channel challenges. And
we’re working together on awards, research and community development. Channel
Insider isn’t the only media company partnering with CompTIA; it also has
relationships with Everything Channel (CRN,
IPED), Nine Lives Media (The VAR Guy, MSP
Mentor) and Business Solutions Magazine.
One of the biggest moves CompTIA made to strengthen its community this year was
the acquisition of MSP Partners, one of the larger professional communities of
managed service providers. CompTIA made the deal to expand its membership and
increase its capacity to service this burgeoning market segment.
In all, CompTIA is quickly moving to fulfill the promises it’s made to
become more dynamic, community-based and valuable to its members. So far, it’s
showing great promise on achieving its goals and transforming itself into the
most vibrant community in the channel. For its efforts, CompTIA has earned the
Channel Insider Challenger Bull’s Eye Award for Channel Community of the Year.
