Under The Radar

May 27, 2009

Our stories in last month's CRN about Comptia and its former CEO's $1 million bonus to recruit new members it later decided to purge launched an unexpected debate online. Some people compared our coverage to the (gulp) mainstream media's coverage of executive pay at financial institutions and auto companies amid federal bailouts. Some even accused us of being (super big gulp) anti-capitalist.

Why would a publication and Web site dedicated to the business of solution providers come out against a $1 million bonus? Isn't our job to want every one of our readers to achieve something similar, if not more?

For the record, I have no personal issues with $1 million bonuses. I didn't even have a problem with the AIG execs getting their bonuses. A contract is a contract. That said, if I have a personal stake in an organization, as a member, a shareholder, an employee, etc., I may have a problem with an exec earning a $1 million bonus for an ill-conceived goal that was later abandoned. That's at least why I thought the story was relevant to our readers. A good chunk of Comptia's members are solution providers.

If a vendor's channel chief spent two or three years recruiting thousands of new partners and soon after decided the company had too many partners, we would write about that, and it wouldn't be a flattering story.

If that makes me anti-capitalist, please write letters on my behalf to the city of San Francisco, my home, where I am often accused of being just to the right of Rush Limbaugh for my positions on things like trying to make the city more responsive to property owners or more business friendly.

So, to set the record straight, we here at Everything Channel believe in capitalism and consider it our mission to further it along where the IT channel is concerned.

In my mind, the more interesting debate centered on Comptia's core business: certifications. In our exclusive members-only section on CRN.com, Everything Channel's Scott Campbell talked to several CIOs who didn't seem to think the technology certifications at the solution providers were as important as they once were. "The bottom line is people do business with people, and relationships which establish long-standing partnerships are less affected by [certifications] than the fact that I know how a partner will react in a difficult circumstance," said Ed Eskew, CIO of Bernard Chaus, a Secaucus, N.J., women's apparel manufacturer.

That's an interesting statement when you consider how much money is spent on certification. Still, those on the other side of the debate say the certifications assure solution providers that the people they hire know what they are doing and assure vendors that their partners are capable of representing them.

Are certifications an important part of your business or a waste? Let me know in the comment section below.