IT Skills & Training - News, Features, and Slideshows

It's no surprise that IT departments have something of a reputation as naysayers when corporate users come calling with tech requests.

Seminole State College in Sanford Fla., near Orlando, graduates about 70 students annually with two-year degrees in its programming and networking programs. Local tech firms have helped to shape the college's courses.

States' efforts to improve cybersecurity are being hindered by lack of money and people. States don't have enough funding to keep up with the increasing sophistication of the threats, and can't match private sector salaries, says a new study.

IT professionals seeking certifications in the coming months may get their best return with cloud and security-related certifications. Agile-related training won't hurt, either.

A long, long time ago, there was an event, usually held in Las Vegas, called the SMS User Conference. (For a full history of MMS, see Rod Trent's article at http://myitforum.com/myitforumwp/docs/the-history-of-mms/.) In 2002, the conference was rebranded as the Microsoft Management Summit (MMS), although that year it was still managed and maintained by Altiris. Over the years MMS grew with Microsoft's management and backing. Microsoft selected the speakers and topics, and the event became more professional as it continued to look more and more like a Microsoft conference rather than a user conference. After MMS 2013, Microsoft decided to "absorb" the Microsoft Management Summit into TechEd, an even larger event and held in Houston in 2014.

Whether the goal is to attract new talent, retain highly qualified employees or develop an internal path to leadership, companies looking to create educational or coaching programs can either go it alone or, like most business processes these days, outsource part or all of the training function to a third-party.

It seems the debate about the IT skills gap has reached a consensus -- both IT leaders and IT workers believe the IT skills gap exists and that it negatively impacts IT operations. But debate remains about the root causes of the skills gap and how best to address them, according to a recent IT Skills Gap Survey released by staffing solutions, IT talent management expertise and IT services provider TEKsystems.