Cross Channel: Red Hat, AI And The Channel’s Recruitment Crisis
All the news from the world of the IT channel, including Red Hat’s investment plans and dealing with a recruitment crisis
Welcome to Cross Channel, a weekly round up of the most pertinent stories from our sister site ChannelBiz, where you can find out all the latest developments, views and strategies from the world of the channel.
Red Hat Talks Channel Recruitment and Investment
Red Hat has outlined several priorities for the channel, including partner recruitment, training and investment.
The open source software vendor has plans to grow its existing Cloud Computing and Service Provider (CCSP) base, particularly specialist Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and vertical specific partners.
Red Hat is also investing in its Global System Integrators (GSI), by offering a deeper curriculum for some key technologies it believes will spearhead digital transformation projects, as customers move from the discovery phase to implementation.
Artificial Intelligence Not Yet Robust Enough
Artificial intelligence (AI), or machine learning (ML), is a long way off replacing human decision making in security, according to new research.
Endpoint security vendor Carbon Black’s Beyond the Hype report is based on more than 400 interviews with cybersecurity researchers who discussed non-malware attacks, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), among other topics.
“There’s still quite a lot of confusion about next generation technologies,” said Mark Reeves, Carbon Black’s VP for EMEA. “The survey shows machine learning has a relevant place but actually it’s probably going to take time to evolve.”
Aging Channel Facing Recruitment Crisis
A report by IT industry association CompTIA estimates that 40 percent of the channel workforce is set to retire within the next decade – and that 75 percent of workers will be millennials by 2024.
However, some question remains whether there’s enough young blood entering the channel to replace those retiring.
Graham Hunter, vice president of skills certifications EMEA for CompTIA describes the channel as being in the midst of a skills crisis. “Growing demand for new staff is starting to affect organisations in a serious way as they struggle to find employees to manage the growing amounts of technology they deploy,” he said.