CompTIA has increased its membership by about 3,000 since last year, said CompTIA Chairman Gary Gillam, who told attendees of the IT association’s annual event held in Orlando this week the ranks are closing in on 25,000 worldwide.
As part of the chairman’s annual address to the CompTIA membership, Gillam also reported member retention of 80 percent and the addition of an office in Melbourne, Australia, the group’s 16th global office. CompTIA has headquarters in Chicago.
The association’s convention, Breakaway, also has experienced a slight uptick in attendance, logging nearly 1,000 registrants, which is up from the 2005 event held in Las Vegas. Gillam said more than 500 of the Orlando visitors were VARs and 80 percent were previous delegates.
Gillam said the gains were due in part to added value the association in bringing to members with several new programs. He cited CompTIA’s new RFID certification program, SoftwareCEO Web portal and Reseller Transformation Advisory Council as a few examples.
“We have many reasons to be optimistic going forward,” he said, citing projected 6.3 percent growth in global IT spending.
The show floor attracted about 115 vendors, which was similar to last year’s event.
Gillam, who is vice president of North American resellers channel operations for Xerox North America, will continue to serve on the board of directors in 2006-2007 as past chairman, but will turn over leadership of the association to Wayne Mize, vice president of Netsourcing Business Center in the document solutions and services division of Ricoh U.S., and the new board of directors (see story).
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