The Secret Reseller on... solving the IT skills shortage and World Password Day
By (un)popular demand, Dave the Dealer returns with second installment of his semi-regular blog
Why solving IT skills shortage is child's play
Anyone moaning about the lack of fresh talent coming into the IT industry isn't looking hard enough.
Areesh Fatima from Karachi, Pakistan, has set a new record by becoming the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional at the age of just 4.5 years.
While other kids her age are still struggling to master potty training and colouring inside the lines, Areesh last month aced the MCP exam with a score of 831, in the process beating previous record holder, Brit Ayan Qureshi, who was five when he achieved the feat in 2014.
According to reports, the wunderkind now has her heart set on memorising the Holy Quran before she turns six.
If Areesh's parents are listening, there will always be a job for her on Dodgi's Microsoft account management team. We may not be able to match the average £36,395 salary commanded by MCPs (according to PayScale), but I can promise her strawberry Yoyo bears on tap and access to a collection of assorted Paw Patrol cast offs from Dave Jr.
Come to think of it, having a four-year-old joining our workforce would certainly erase the permanent smirk that has graced the face of our head of sales, Gordon, since he made the cut for a ‘30 under 30' list last Autumn.
An appetising alliance
Everyone's talking about the rise of ‘co-selling', but as a foodie there's only one company in my partner-to-partner cross-hairs.
Last month I made everyone in the Dog and Duck tune in as the channel's own Mike Tomkins cooked up a storm in the MasterChef final.
Tomkins - who is a sales manager for cloud services provider FluidOne - had earlier in the BBC2 series become a meme for ruining the treasured madeleine family recipe of Michele Roux Jr.
Despite serving up a lip-smacking menu of seared scallop, pithivier and almond sponge in the grand finale, it was not to be, but in his post-finale interview with CRN here he let slip he is open to putting his culinary skills to use at customer and partner events.
So to all at FluidOne I say, if you are looking to forge a peer-to-peer alliance with an East London-based specialist in factory-seconds networking devices, look no further.
A word on World Password Day
In an inevitable consequence of the growth of everyone's favourite pointless profession - public relations - tomorrow is ‘World Password Day'.
A report in 2018 claimed PRs now outnumber journalists by six to one, so it's little wonder my inbox is clogged by a succession of ‘days' celebrating concepts thinly disguising whatever their clients happen to be hawking.
World Password Day sounds harmless enough, until a bit of digging reveals it was first officially declared by Intel (who - guess what - have some security solutions to help with that - or at least did back in 2013!).
As a rebel and non-conformist, having someone lecture me on the importance of strong passwords and multi-factor authentication just makes me want to do the opposite. In fact, as soon as I've finished writing this column I'm going to jot down all my passwords on a post-it and stick it to my monitor, just to spite them.
World Password Day follows hot on the heels of World Back up Day (the brainchild of hard drive vendor Maxtor) on 31 March and precedes MSP Day (dreamed up by the PR minions of MSP tools vendor Barracuda Networks) on 21 May.
I would probably take a leaf from their book, but for some reason ‘Fire Damaged Router Day' doesn't have the same ring to it. Although I do have a two-for-one deal on if anyone's interested (full disclosure: devices at the bottom of each pallet may be mildly warped).