According to the briefing provided in the meeting, the target of this Trustmark is public SaaS solution vendors with cloud go-to-market. The channel value proposition here is to protect resellers and their customers by ensuring cloud vendors meet a certain level of technical performance. The projected scope of the Trustmark, so far, is validation of vendor marketing claims about uptime, availability, security and more, with a focus on cloud solution deliverables.
CompTIA’s next step in developing the Trustmark is interviews with subject matter experts (SMEs) to further build scope and a development plan. CompTIA’s senior manager of member communities programs Miles Jobgen described the process of participating in one of the association’s SME think tanks, specifying that we ask SMEs take a break from communicating with their companies via smart phones, tablets and laptops during such events. Jobgen joked that if anyone in attendance was so integral to their company that they could not feasibly get away from it for such a session, “I would suggest you go through a Trustmark to build up your business processes to where you can leave occasionally.”
Next up, Tony Francisco, CEO of VAR Dynamics, and Jeff Dryall briefed the meeting on its community polling and research efforts. They stated the goal of such efforts is to survey existing membership on industry topics, including cloud. The idea here is to tap into the knowledge base of CompTIA’s 2,000 member companies, many of which are comprised of large employee populations, asking them mainly yes or no, tech-based questions. CompTIA director of communities Kate Hunt pointed out that this polling and research is very different from CompTIA’s formal research in that it is informal, anecdotal and only directed at membership and Communities, not the IT industry in general.
After a short break, the meeting saw a keynote by author Todd Nielsen. He asserted that we are approaching “a perfect storm for cloud computing,” because technology innovation continues, Internet availability continues to grow in geographic reach and speed, and we’re raising a generation of children on constant access to technology. After a wide ranging discussion with the audience, Nielsen concluded that the time to execute the cloud is now, and that this means following these five steps:
- Innovate/specialize/generalize
- Figure out your purpose
- Figure out where you want to go (and what kind of talent your company needs to get there)
- Create an execution plan
- Execute
To get involved with CompTIA’s Cloud/SaaS Community, click here. Look for coverage from AMM to continue tomorrow, March 13, here on the CompTIA blog and on our social media profiles.
