CompTIA to GTIA: Industry Insights with Carolyn April (EP 938)

Hello friends, Uncle Marv here with another episode of the IT Business Podcast. Once again, recording at IT Nation Orlando. And just a little programming note, they have wheeled out tables in front of my booth again.

So people will be coming out here. It looks like grabbing snacks and lunch and who knows what else. So if it gets loud, you know I'll try to filter out as much as possible.

Except I don't edit, so what happens. Let's see here, our guest today is a first timer on the show, but you know her name. She has been in the industry for quite a long time.

But we do have to talk about some changes that have happened because the name may have changed on the company that she's with. I am talking about Carolyn April with GTIA. Carolyn, welcome to the show.

Happy to be here, Marvin. Yay. Now your title, let me see if I get this right, Vice President of Research and Market Intelligence.

Correct. It's a long title. It is a long title.

You can just call me VP or you can call me VP of Research. I shorten it often to VP of Research, yeah. Okay, VP of Research.

Yes. Now, that's what you were doing before, right? It is. Well, I wasn't a VP.

Well, no, that's not true. I was a VP for the last year or so at CompTIA as well. Okay.

But yes, I was on the research team at my previous employer, CompTIA, which we can talk about how that's all morphed to where I am today as a researcher. I've been on the research team for 16 years. Okay.

That's a long time to be a researcher. Kind of, yeah. Yeah.

It is. My career has been split in half between journalism and specifically tech journalism for most of that time and then being an analyst on the research side. Right.

It's almost evenly split in the number of years I spent doing both. So, I guess the net separates out into the questions of which one is more fun and which one pays the bills. Well, you know, journalism is a lot of fun, but I wouldn't want to be in it today.

When I was in journalism, it was still a lot of fun. Then the internet has sort of changed what journalism is. I'm old enough to say I was in journalism when I was a newspaper reporter, like for real.

I carried a pad of paper around and went to events and I wrote notes and I went back to the newsroom. It's like an old newsroom you would see in television shows. I wrote stories on deadline and I did that.

Had to get it approved by the editor. Oh, yeah. I had a lot of fun.

I was a city newspaper reporter for a long time. Then I was a technology journalist back when tech journalism was about the big magazines that you would see like Computer World. Computer Shopper.

And all of those giant magazines I wrote for. And then I was doing more of the video as we kind of morphed into the internet and writing more blogs. That was kind of what I morphed into.

And at one point, I was asked if I was interested in being an analyst because I did a lot of analysis in the stories that I was writing. And to your second question, the analyst side of the house pays the bills better. Of course.

So I tried it and I've not left ever since. Interesting. So they kind of tapped you on the shoulder and said, come over here.

Yeah. It's actually not an unusual transition to see technology journalists move over to the technology analyst role. I've seen it.

I'm not the first one to do it at all by any means. There's been plenty of people who have paved the way there and continue to do that. So it's sort of a natural progression in a career.

Yeah. So with the changes that have happened and let me go back and ask because there's dates that kind of move as to when the split actually happened or the name change with GTIA. So when was the official transition? The official finalization of the deal was in January of this year, mid-January.

I don't know the exact date. We were aware of this deal as employees at CompTIA sometime in, I think, November of 2024. Yeah.

Okay. Yes. And so we were all made aware of it and told the deal was going to take about two months to be completed.

And in that time, we still worked under the CompTIA name. We continued in our roles and in our jobs. There were some departments that had to participate in early transition activities like marketing and changing collateral and changing names and all of that branding stuff.

But my role really during the transition, I just kept the pace of what I was already researching and working on. And then in January, we closed finally and the name change happened. And then the real transition began in earnest.

Okay. Now, I think all of us remember CompTIA only from the fact of that's where we got our certifications, our A+, our Network+, and all of the other ones and stuff. I'll be honest, full disclosure, I was one of those people that did not realize that you had membership beyond paying to be a part of CompTIA.

Okay. Which I never really understood what that meant until I went to a ChannelCon event. Ah, yes.

Back in 2014, 2015. Mm-hmm. And then after that, I kind of fell off.

Okay. I'll be honest there. Yeah.

So when the change happened, it didn't really affect me much except I, of course, as a podcaster, paid attention to the news and all of that stuff. Right. So from a person from the outside looking in, how would you describe the difference in what people remember as CompTIA versus what is now GTIA? I think that the main difference, and obviously you were plugged into CompTIA on that certification side, and I think we were very well known for that.

Right. We did, though, have a very – the actual old, old history of CompTIA is as a membership association. The certification piece came in a little bit later.

So the actual genesis of the organization was as a membership organization. Okay. For companies in the channel, in the vendor – vendors, distributors, everybody who plays in the IT industry could be a member.

But as time went on, the certification side of CompTIA, which was the for-profit side – that's an interesting thing to point out. The membership side was a nonprofit, functioned as a nonprofit, but the certification side was a for-profit department or piece – I don't know exactly how to describe it – of the overall company. So as that piece grew bigger, the nonprofit sort of became a much bigger entity than the membership association.

And that's probably why your memory of it is really not knowing much about the membership side. Right. But really our core, our roots, is as a membership association.

So you pay your dues, you get to join, you have access to all of our resources like the research that I do. We have member education, our events, ChannelCon you mentioned, that we do every year, and all kinds of other activities and other sorts of resources that we have. And so that's been growing.

We hope to grow it more. That's what we're doing exclusively now. We are a membership association that is a nonprofit only.

We are no longer associated with the certification business. They are operating on their own. They were purchased by a PE group, and they are operating and doing the same things they were doing before.

But no longer part of GTIA, which is what we renamed ourselves. Right. But at the core, it's still the same.

Yes. Both actually are operating as the same as they did, but we're no longer one organization. And we're no longer affiliated with one another in any way.

Oh. Yes. But it was a happy divorce, right? It was a happy divorce, yes.

I think it was good. It was time. It served the needs of both groups.

I mean, now we on the GTIA site can focus all of our efforts, all of our money, all of our spending, all of our resources on the channel. And everything that the channel is doing, including the vendors they work with, the distributors they work with. And so it's really nice to have a singular focus for once.

We were kind of diversified before in such a way that you couldn't really focus as much as you wanted on the things you wanted, because there were other areas of the business that had to be paid attention to. Now we can lavish everybody in this channel with all of our attention. And I think that that's really exciting.

And we're just hoping to grow like gangbusters with the number of members that we have and what we can do for them. Because the mission behind GTIA is really to help channel companies run their businesses better through networking and peer interaction and the kind of resources that we can provide that will help them learn the types of things they need to learn to be good business owners, to be good at technology, and to move in the right direction. All right. 

So you keep saying that we can do this, we can do that. What about you yourself? I mean, how much of a change has it been for you? Is it easier, happier? I'm very happy. For me, I now head the department for research, which is a nice change.

So I get to make a lot of decisions about the types of research that we decide to do in concert with our membership, who have an input as well. And it's sort of nice. You're playing with a blank piece of paper in some ways.

I get to make decisions about how I envision the research department running and what I see for the future and what types of content we want to deliver that we might not have done before. New types of podcasts, new types of research reports, shorter research reports, more things that we do with video. And so that's exciting for me, is being able to figure out all of the myriad ways that we can provide content and deliver it to our members in the ways that they like to consume content.

Some people love to read a 30-page research report. Other people want the whole thing just distilled down for them into a quick one-pager, and that's all they want. Other people want to hear me on a podcast or see me on stage.

So the ability to be able to spend a lot of time working on all of those mediums is fun. It's a lot of fun. All right.

So you did say 30 pages. I remember that your big IT industry outlook report for 2025, 34 pages. Yes, I half wrote that.

Yes, I did one half of that, and my colleague did the other half. All right. I'll get back to that in a minute.

But you mentioned the podcast, and we talked just a bit before that. The CompTIA Volley. Yes.

That you're no longer doing. No. Volley has been one of the casualties, I guess I'd put it that way, of the split.

My partner and I did, co-host and I did Volley. We came up with it about eight years ago, and we've been doing it every other week for the full eight years, no break. And it was a joy.

It really was to do. We tried to figure out a way to keep it going. It's just not feasible at the moment.

I will not say dead is dead. We may bring it back in some form, but for now it's retired. All right.

I remember I left off. I think there was one or two that I had not caught up with, but, of course, this tells you how far behind I was. But I remember the one episode that last one I listened to was the one about the MSP standards.

Oh, okay, yes. That was part of the outlook this year. It was one of the ten trends that we had.

Really about professionalizing the MSP business. So having some sort of set of credentials or standards or professional obligation, I guess, that MSPs would have to fulfill. Similar to what you see other professions need to do, like doctors, lawyers.

They all have to meet some sort of criteria. They have to go to school. They have to take tests.

They have to be licensed. Or even trade companies like plumbers and electricians. They all have some sort of professional credentialing that they have to do.

There's been a lot of talk among the MSP world for many, many years this is not a new topic. But occasionally it kind of rises to the front and then it recedes and then it comes back. And I think we're in a cycle right now with a lot of cybersecurity issues where MSP accountability and liability are huge issues right now.

And one of the ways that some people think would take the industry a long way towards solving that is having some sort of good housekeeping seal of approval that MSPs have to attain to be able to say we are real MSPs as opposed to anyone who can hang out a shingle and call themselves an MSP. So I've talked to a couple of other organizations that we all realize this is important. We know that there are states starting to put things in place.

A lot of things basically aimed at protecting businesses in their states. And, you know, of course addressing if you're an outside vendor and you touch a company's systems you need to be responsible to some degree. Yes.

Now I didn't get to prep you with a lot of questions so I may ask things that you may not be ready to answer. Okay. But there are some organizations that have been around a while and there are some that are kind of starting to pop up trying to come up with these seals, these I don't want to say trust marks.

We have a trust mark. That's yours. In cybersecurity.

But there's others that are trying to come up with all of these certifications, all of these documents. Hey, you can put this on you. Yeah.

You mentioned the other industries. Like I have a lot of law firms as clients and they have their state bars. They have the American Bar Association, which none of them are really legal obligations, but they can, you know, sanction members and do stuff.

We don't have that. And some companies are talking about the idea of how do we put that together in our space and which companies do it? Do we want it to be vendor driven? Can we do a vendor agnostic? Right. At some point in time, people thought, oh, CompTIA pretty much has the hold on all the certifications.

Why not CompTIA? Yes, that's certainly come across our doorstep many times. Yeah. And for, you know, many reasons it makes sense to have an independent, you know, body of some sort, whether it's, you know, GTIA or another association that does not have, you know, some sort of bias or skin in the game like a vendor would or an individual MSP.

Take that on. I don't know. We, you know, we informally discuss these kinds of things all the time.

I think right now we're, you know, we've got a lot of other things on our plate right now. But this is not an issue I think that's going to go away. I believe the cybersecurity angle alone is what's going to drive the need for some sort of, I don't know what we want to call it.

Like, you know, if it's a credential, a professional certification, like a good housekeeping seal of approval as I've often used as just an example. But something like that that signals to a customer that the company, the provider that they are going to sign up with, you know, has met certain set of standards and has a certain set up of their own that meets a sort of set of standards, whether that's having their own SOC or whatever. You could check off this checklist of things that they could have.

And I think it's a good idea. How it gets done I think is complicated. Of course.

Yes. That's for people with pay grades higher than us, right? Yes. Okay.

Let's go ahead and switch back to the industry outlook. Which half did you do? So I can ask the appropriate question. I do anything related to the channels.

So the channel-oriented, IT industry-oriented, as opposed to there were many trends. We divided it between, there were ten trends and five of them my colleague did and they're focused usually on something very technical. Okay.

And I couldn't even remember all the trends from last year. It's been such a busy year. We did that in January or December of 2024.

Did you do the part about the counting the cost for AI? I did not. There were two AI trends. One was more focused toward the channel and the other was, the cost one I believe was Seth's, my colleague's.

You did the data team formation enables analysis. No, we did not do that one. Interesting.

Yeah, that was fun because he took the ones that really were pertinent to IT pros. So how IT pros working in data set up their teams. That's where that one would fit in.

All right. Well, let's stop guessing and why don't I just ask you this question about what's your biggest takeaway from the study that you think we should know as MSPs? Yeah, I mean, I think we started to explore some of the big areas. What AI is going to mean to MSPs? I think that it's going to mean a lot.

I think of all the types of channel firms out there that are going to be affected by AI and MSP more than anything because the technology itself is not only going to be a business play with their customers, it's very much going to reorient how they run their own business, how they automate their own business. And so many of those companies that I see, all of where they have started with AI is inside their four walls. They're working with AI experimentally.

They're rolling it out and how they deliver services to customers, how they automate some of the processes that they've got. And then they're going to turn their attention to how they're going to apply AI to selling things to customers and getting revenue from it. Right now, it's more of an internal thing.

So I think from the outlook, we explored a little bit of that. I know we talked about the cybersecurity landscape a bit, the MSP credentialing. I'm trying to remember.

You're launching me back about 12 months ago. No, that's okay. That's okay.

I should have a better brain in that regard, but it's been a busy, busy year. I was going to say, it's been a busy year, and you're kind of now coming up almost to the end of the year. Yeah, this January will be our first full year as GTIA coming up.

So now that you've had this transition under your belt for a while and stuff, where do you see things starting to really settle in for you? On the GTIA side? Yeah. I think this year was a classic transition year. We're a much smaller organization.

We were an almost 500-person organization. We are now about 70, 75 people. So that's a very different type of organization.

We are the size we were when I first started at CompTIA. CompTIA was very small in the beginning, and then as the certification business grew over the years, we added and added and added. We became a very different company just because by nature of the size.

So we've gone back to small. So that's been part of the transition is readjusting to that. I know everybody who works here now.

And going back to that and what that means for resources and what you can do, just getting comfortable with the brand, comfortable with the new CEO. We have a new CEO, so we've got somebody else who we are all listening to who has his own ideas, his own mission for the organization. He's fantastic.

Dan Wensley is his name. Many of you in the industry already know him. He's been around for a long time.

So that's been a big adjustment for everybody is working under a new leader with a different culture. And so we've really spent all of this year in that kind of transition and amazingly done some great work. We really haven't slowed down.

On my side of the fence with research, we have put out the reports that we have been planning to put out. We continue to pace. I've been on the road speaking.

So we've managed to deal with the transition and at the same time do our job, which has been good. A lot of times that can be very difficult to do. So looking ahead now to, as you asked, to 2026, I think now we're really positioned to be doing less and less of that transition activity and far more of the future.

And what we want to get done this year, the new areas we want to explore, growing our membership. And for me, that's going to mean maybe adding somebody to my team, being able to do a little bit more research than we have in the past, and make sure that we're focusing the research that we do on the topics that are most important to our members, like what they want to know about, what research is going to help them and inform them in the decisions that they make about their business. So I'm really excited for this coming year because the transition will be for the most part behind us.

And we'll be able to just kind of let loose on what we want to do. Okay. So you talked about traveling and speaking.

If I remember correctly, years ago it was always you did your own events, people came to you. Yes. It seems as though this past year you guys are now going out to events.

You know, I believe this is – no, I think you guys were at the IT Nation security in June or July. Probably, yes. You guys have been out a lot.

We've been out a lot. How much has that been a change going to other events? That's been amazing because, you know, in the past I would get a speaking engagement at another event, but we as a team wouldn't be sending a whole bunch of GTI people who worked on membership who were there to recruit. Get a booth out there.

Get a word out, get a booth, all of that. So it was more about some of the thought leaders on the team would get a speaking engagement at an event, and that would be the only person who went. So you are 100% right.

We have spent this year – this is a huge part of what our new CEO, Dan Wensley, is trying to accomplish, is getting us out there more, and we have been aggressively attending events. It's been amazing. I mean, I'm learning so much.

It's so much better for our team to be out there. We're able to spread the message about GTIA and what we do and how you can benefit, and so we're going to keep at that. You'll see much more of that in 2026.

We're going to go to as many events as we are able, and that includes outside of the United States. We have a global presence. We were just in London for our own ChannelCon EMEA event that we do.

But while there, we had people going to the PAX 8 EMEA event and other events that are going on all over EMEA. We are also in ANZ. We're in ASEAN.

So we're all over the map, and that will continue, and probably we will be doing more global work in the future too. Okay. So I know you're more research side.

You're not the one that has to go out and schmooze with the MSPs and stuff. No. I do, but it's not the primary part of my job.

Will there be any different products or reports coming out that we should really pay attention to? Anything that you're shifting focus on? Yeah. I mean, I think we're going to stick to a couple of flagship reports that we do every year because they're well-received, and the members expect them, and they like them. And one is the annual State of the Channel.

I'm going to keep that. It'll be out in Q1. It always is.

We deliver it at our first big conference of the year, CCF, which is in Chicago every year. So State of the Channel will stay. The Trends in Cybersecurity is the other anchor.

That will stay. That one is about to publish. It'll publish in a week and a half.

That's the Q4 end-of-the-year flagship. So we've got the Q1, Q4. The middle of the year is where we have something to play with.

And last year, I did an SMB—or this year, it's still this year. But last Q2, I did an SMB study of end-user SMBs. So it was an end-customer study to give our members ideas and facts about what their customers are doing, thinking, saying when it comes to technology in their business, which is good information for their sales, their marketing, and all of what they focus on.

I'm going to try to do more end-user research like that because it's coming. It turns out it's extremely valuable to the membership. They want it.

So you'll see more of that coming from me. And we were not doing a lot of that at CompTIA when I left. So that will become part of the portfolio that I'm going to put out there.

I think you're going to see me doing research on AI for sure this year. A big— You can't avoid that. Devoting a big research thing.

I can't avoid it. I'm trying to come up with something unique to do with it that isn't already out there. And then really building out other things like working with companies to build out other useful pieces of content or tools that can help them run their business better.

Like we're going to possibly be working on an AI assessment tool that will help channel companies assess their AI maturity, their readiness, where they're at. And then our education team would take over from there, take the data that we collect on where companies are at on their AI journey and turn that into some actionable education and training that they can then take through GTIA to help them get further on their journey in AI. So we're trying to work together more synergy between the departments.

So I don't work in a silo anymore, research only. My research is informed by what the people who are doing the schmoozing out at events are hearing from their members. They're coming back to me, talking to me.

I figure out what I might want to study. What I study and the data I collect and analyze is then fed into our education team who come up with products, the training courses and things that our members can take. We're trying to make it a real synergistic type of operation that isn't operate.

We did a lot of silo work before and it was great, but it isn't as good as it could be if we're all working together and collaborating on one kind of mission and one message. All right. So playing well with others.

Yes. As your mother has taught us to. Yes.

All right. So as we end out here, I'm going to hit you with this question. Okay.

What's been the favorite thing you've had to answer while here at IT Nation? Favorite thing I've had to answer? Yeah. Okay. Well, I like your question of whether I'm happy in the new role.

Really? Honestly, yes, because I am really happy. So it's good for me to be able to say that in the affirmative and it's true. I'm not bullshitting.

It's true. Yeah, I'm very happy in the new job. That's good.

Got a question today that I didn't see coming because I don't know how the questioner knew that I was a runner, and the first question he asked me was, you know, so I know you're a runner, and he asked me something about running, and I was kind of flabbergasted because I don't recall. I didn't know this podcaster and I don't recall ever saying anything. So clearly I've said this on another podcast or I must have written about it or something, and he did his background research on me.

Yeah, we all do. We all do. Yes, so that one came as a surprise, but a happy surprise because I'm happy to talk about running anytime.

Yeah, I didn't do as deep a dive on you as I normally would because I don't like to do that to first-timers on the show. Thank you. Maybe next time I will have you on the show and we'll come up with something.

Well, you asked me my happy question. Something Chicago-based, you know. Okay.

Yeah, I lived there for six years of my early life. You talk about the snow an awful lot. I live in New Hampshire, so I live in the snow anyway.

I know, but I hate snow. A lot of people hate snow. I mean, I'm not a big fan.

I ski, so I get, you know, there's an activity that I do. You do ski. Yes, well, I grew up in New England, so.

But that doesn't mean you have to ski. Well, in my world I had to ski. It was kind of, yeah, my parents skied, so it was sort of something we did in our family.

But yes, you're right. There are lots of people who don't ski, but I like it. Well, let me ask you this now.

Do you ski for fun or do you ski because people come to visit you and they say, hey, take us to the slopes? That happens, but I, you know, I ski alone a lot. What? Yeah. You're not supposed to ski alone, are you? Yes, yes.

It's very much a solo activity. No, it's not. Yeah, it can be a great group activity, but also if you go in the singles line, you meet, you beat the lift line where all the people are waiting with their group.

You can just go in together and get on it. There's a singles line at a slope? There's a singles line at a slope, so you join a group line. You know, say it's a four-person chairlift.

There are three people traveling together. You can get in that shorter single line and just jump on solo with the first one open, and you get up there faster. You can make friends or you cannot talk to them at all while you're on the chairlift, whatever you decide.

And then when you're skiing, you're just skiing by yourself. You're not talking to me. You're, you know, you're skiing.

It's like a kind of like a... I know, but I always see skiing as something where somebody's got to be paying attention in case something happens. Oh, well, there's, yeah, they have those, you know, ski patrol people to do that. I'm a very cautious skier.

I mean, I don't take, I don't, you know, I'm not somebody who skis down really steep slopes and, you know, puts myself in danger. I know my limits. I'm a good skier, but I'm not a great skier.

So I know, you know, I just stay on my, I stay in my lane. All right. What's the denomination for the, is it like a G1 to a G10? Is that what the courses are rated? No, they're color coded.

They're color coded. Yes. So there's, you know, green is the beginner hill.

Okay. And there's variations. You can be like, you know, a very low green, be like the bunny hill where you're learning how to ski, and then they can go up to where green is bleeding into blue, which is intermediate.

So they'd be the hardest greens that then become blue. And that's blue is intermediate. And that's a big category.

I like the intermediate. That's, I'm a blue skier. I ski.

Okay. Ski in the bluest. And then there's black and black diamond, which is a single diamond.

And there's double black diamonds, which are the hardest slopes to ski. Okay. And they have those at the top of the trail.

So you know what you're getting into and you can decide whether you're going to go down this, this or this. But those all wouldn't be at the same course, would they? They're, you know, every mountain is cut differently. So you can be at the same part of the, you know, the, the, the, the peak, wherever it happens to be, where you get off the chairlift.

And there could be a green trail that starts there, a blue trail that starts there, and a black. Okay. The black one may just go directly down.

The green one may loop around the mountain so that it's flatter. All right. So if somebody like me were to come up and visit.

Yeah. Obviously I'd have to be on the, the green, green. Yes.

Stuff. Some people pick it up quickly, but most people don't like to learn to ski with their, with their friends or family. It can, it, you know, it causes a lot of problems.

Yes. Yes. Also, yeah.

People get in fights, you know, especially if one is, one is a good skier and they're trying to teach their beginner friend or beginner family. That's what I'm talking about. Yes.

I told my wife. I advise people get a lesson. Don't let your wife teach you.

Don't let your husband teach you. Don't let your dad teach you. Get a lesson.

Yeah. When my wife moved down and she's like, oh, we should play this together. I'm like, I don't think so.

No. Yeah. It's, it's exactly that.

Okay. All right. Well, there you go.

See, we learned something there. You talked about skiing. You are a blue skier.

Blue, blue, blue, blue trails. Blue trails. Yeah.

I don't know why I keep thinking of a G10. It must be that movie better off dead with John Cusack and. Yeah.

I don't know. I think I thought that was maybe that's car racing. No, it was skiing.

Was it? Oh, it's probably professional. Well, they have, you know, professional skis, all different animal. There's different types, slalom, giant slalom downhill.

You know, now there's all the, you know, snowboarding types of skiing as well. So it's. Ever snowboarded.

I have not. No, I've never snowboarded. Yeah.

I'm old enough to, to have started when it was just skiing was the option with two skis and I never transitioned over. But most people I know today are snowboarders. Believe it or not.

That's, that's usually where you're going. Yeah. You're hanging out with some hip people then.

Pardon me? You're hanging out with some hip people. Well, yeah. Yeah.

Some hip people. Most kids, kids like to snowboard. Well, Carolyn, thank you very much.

That was a very good ending. All right. It was better than the one that I had thought we were going to do.

Okay. Well, maybe next time. Maybe.

We'll try out different ones. I'll come back anytime. It was a great pleasure.

All right. Well, there you have it, folks. Carolyn April, Vice President of Research and Market Intelligence at the new GTIA, coming up on One Year Old.

That's right. So, congrats. Thank you.

Have a good holiday season. You too. And we'll be looking forward to those reports next year.

All right. Terrific. Nice to do this.

All right, folks. That's it. We'll be back with more from IT Nation here in Orlando.

See you soon. Holla. All righty.

Bye. Bye. Bye.

Bye.