Breakaway 2011 News

Put the Legal Services Market on Your Docket

Brian Sherman — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 10:11:25 GMT

Legal professionals are among the earliest tech adopters, at least pertaining to the toys they love to buy (whether they need them or not). From iPads to the latest mobile smart phone devices, many lawyers enjoy being on the “cutting edge” in all aspects of their lives. With an estimated 1.2 million licensed attorneys in the U.S. according to the American Bar Association—almost 75 percent of them in a private practice—it’s a market that solution providers need to be actively involved in. ...

Get Help Attaining the CompTIA Security Trustmark

Brian Sherman — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 10:05:09 GMT

IT security is one of the most important services solution providers can offer to their clients. Each business struggles with data and network protection concerns. It’s so critical, professionals in with this expertise have a greater value and the opportunity to become one of their clients most trusted business partners. While many solution providers have the capability of providing security services, it’s not always easy to communicate the benefits to prospective and current customers.

That’s one benefit of the CompTIA IT Security ...

The Modern-Day Classroom

Rachel Fabro — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 15:54:53 GMT

Going to school for your children today is much different than it was when you were a kid. You used to be able to get away with your stories of walking to school in three feet of snow, up-hill both ways, but today's kids can Google your story and find out that you're just exaggerating.

Jean Andrews, CompTIA A+ textbook author with Cengage Learning, gathered educators from across the country at CompTIA Breakaway to discuss ...

Using Health IT to Improve Patient Care

Leslie Hague — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 15:47:03 GMT

The main challenge to successfully implementing health IT isn't the technology aspect, but rather how to understand, digitize and improve clinician workflow, speakers at the CompTIA Tech Summit said on Thursday.

"You are re-engineering the way medicine is practiced in healthcare settings," said Bethany Gilboard, director of health technologies for the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.

Physicians can sometimes be resistant to a new model of patient care, said Charles Jarvis, vice president of healthcare industry services ...

I’m Not an Accountant, but I Play One at the Office

Bob Dirkes — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 12:43:28 GMT

Those of us who have owned and operated small businesses understand a few essential truths:

Buying accounting software doesn't make you an accountant.
Hiring an accountant doesn't mean you're managing your books.
And understanding the two points above won't necessarily make your business profitable.

Fact is making your business successful is tough without personally managing your profit and loss (P&L) statement. It comes down to data, CompTIA CFO Dave Sommer told Breakaway attendees this morning: ...

Cybersecurity in the Age of Mobility

Steve Ostrowski — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 12:27:46 GMT

Cybersecurity experts at the CompTIA Tech Summit today shared a chilling scenario of the current threat level in the world of mobile devices and applications

"Right now mobile security is a pretty dicey place," said Andrew Hoog, chief investigative officer, viaForensics. "It's too much for an IT department to take on, but it's too big an issue to ignore. It's a massive hole."

"The numbers of users, devices and applications are massive," said Brian Contos, ...

Security and the Cloud: Something Old, Something New

Steve Ostrowski — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 12:23:29 GMT

Security considerations in a cloud computing universe are real, but not much different than the threats organizations wrestle with today in a traditional networking environment.

"This is not a new set of issues," said Ellen Rubin, founder, CloudSwitch. "The issues are the same that you have in your own internal environment."

Rubin was one of the speakers on a "Security and Cloud Migration" panel at the inaugural CompTIA Tech Summit, co-located with CompTIA Breakaway ...

A Glimpse into the Science Center

Rachel Fabro — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 12:19:24 GMT

Cybersecurity is a growing concern for virtually every industry, thus creating a growing demand for professionals with security skills. Cyber foundations is the second fastest growing job field in the U.S. between now and 2018, second only to healthcare. But where are these people going to come from?

A hot-button topic at CompTIA Breakaway, Joseph Cuenco, executive director at The Science Center of Pinellas County in Florida, gave CAPP Academic education leaders a glimpse ...

Vendors Debut New Products & Offer Training at Breakaway

Lisa Fasold — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 10:45:28 GMT

Protecting bare drives is imperative while storing and transporting digital data as spills and falls could be catastrophic to a hard drive. CRU-DataPort has redesigned and improved its anti-static drive case for bare 3.5" hard drives and 2.5” notebook drives. CRU-Dataport was one of 160 vendors showcasing their solutions to help VARs grow their business at Breakaway.

DriveBoxes add minimal height to a drive making them more compact to steadily store on a shelf ...

Breakaway Vendors Help VARs Grow their Businesses

Lisa Fasold — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 10:17:18 GMT

At Breakaway this week in Washington, D.C, more than 160 vendors showed their latest and greatest to 1,000 key industry players. In our series of posts covering what’s new, check out these six vendors and how they can help solution providers grow their businesses.

Calyptix Security released its Beta version of its “Single Pane of Glass” management platform, dubbed SPS v1.0, at Breakaway. The SPS will provide a platform for IT professionals and managed service ...

Wild West Mobility Market

Steven Ostrowski — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 08:56:07 GMT

The market for mobile devices and applications is a 21st century version of the Wild West where technology solution providers can strike it rich by bringing law and order to the technology frontier.

"There are not a lot of standards," Bill Taylor, president, Panasonic Systems Networks Company of America, said during a mobility trends industry panel discussion Wednesday at CompTIA Breakaway 2011. "You’ve got this Wild West of multipurpose devices."

What’s needed, especially by business ...

Business Continuity Planning: The Top IT Priority for 2011

Bob Dirkes — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 08:51:09 GMT

Lester Keizer offers this perspective to MSPs, "If you don’t have a business continuity/disaster recovery plan you can share with clients, you are doing them a disservice that borders on unethical."

Keizer, CEO of Business Continuity Technologies, led today’s "Business Continuity Planning: The Top IT Priority for 2011" session at Breakaway 2011. The program was the winner of the Attendee-Voted Breakaway Wildcard Session – and with good reason. Events during the last decade ...

Best of Breakaway Awards

Lisa Fasold — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 08:34:19 GMT

Congratulations to the three big winners of the Best of Breakaway Awards. At Wednesday night’s CompTIAccelerate Dinner three technology companies won “best of” awards based on the votes of Breakaway attendees.

The award for Best Software was won by Autotask Corporation, the world’s leading provider of hosted IT business management software.

The Best Hardware award was claimed by Lenovo, a $US21 billion personal technology company serving customers in more than 160 countries, and ...

Vendors Ready to Partner in Telecom, Cloud Space

Leslie Hague — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 08:30:24 GMT

There are myriad opportunities for partnering in the telecommunications and cloud services space, and global IT vendors are eager to do so.

Seventy percent of vendors surveyed by Amazon Consulting said telecom service providers were “very strategic” to their 2011 indirect channel go-to-market plan. Beth Vanni, Amazon Consulting vice president, presented results from the survey of 64 global IT vendors at a Breakaway session on Wednesday.

Sixteen percent of the vendors were “still formulating a ...

Hybrid Business Model Is Route to Success

Steven Ostrowski — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 17:46:53 GMT

The IT solution provider companies best positioned for future success are the ones that take a hybrid approach to customers, combining traditional product sales and support with new offerings in managed services, cloud computing and customized application development.

That's the collective view of four IT industry analysts who spoke Wednesday at CompTIA Breakaway 2011.

"We believe the hybrid model will be here for the next 10 to 15 years, a combination of on-premise equipment ...