Peter Ingle: It has been an exciting year for New Horizons

Питър Ингъл, Регионален директор на New Horizons Computer Learning Centers, посети София по случай официалното откриване на новия офис на New Horizons Bulgaria.
В приветствието си към гостите, споделили празника на учебния център, Питър разкри новини за инициативи в мрежата на New Horizons и очерта глобални тенденции в сферата на ИТ тренингите. Цялото приветствие можете да прочетете в следващите редове.

It has been an exciting year for New Horizons – we are working on opening new locations around the world from Moscow, to Mexico City, to China and closer to home in Warsaw, Poland.

Both our network and our partnerships have become stronger this year – for example New Horizons has just entered into a relationship with VMware and we have signed an agreement in the US to become a VMware Authorized Training Center (VATC). This will be extended throughout the International regions hopefully by early next year so that we can offer official and certified VMWare courses to our customers. Meanwhile our already strong partnerships with organisations such as Microsoft, CompTIA and Cisco go from strength to strength. For example, New Horizons are Microsoft’s largest Learning Partner worldwide and we purchase 40% of all official MOC sold around the world.

As you all know the world of IT is an ever changing landscape and in many ways that’s why New Horizons exists – to help organisations take advantage of technology changes to help them increase revenue or reduce costs by improving productivity and capability.

The biggest change that is happening in IT now is the move towards “Cloud” computing. The Cloud is going to change the way most organisations will consume IT. In fact the Cloud is where we are starting to deliver a large % of our training in the USA and soon in Europe. Our Cloud based training is called Online Live. We have replicated traditional classroom training and moved it Online with a Live Instructor teaching students in our “virtual classroom”. New Horizons has invested heavily in our Labs on Demand solution and our Learning management System, which makes a successful Online Live class possible.

The move towards the cloud is also going to create new IT roles and responsibilities – and organisations like Microsoft are responding by creating courses and certifications geared towards this need. While some roles will become less important new positions such as Azure Developer, HyperV Administrator and Office 365 Administrator will be created. New Horizons will be well positioned to help upskill IT Pros and Developers to handle these new and important responsibilities.

The cloud is an exciting development in the world of IT and it’s going to make a really positive difference to all of us – Organisations as a whole, Office Workers, IT Pros and individuals!

When we look at the IT labour market throughout Europe and indeed many other parts of the world there is a shortage of qualified and experienced IT professionals and this creates a challenge for business looking to grow. Organisations such as New Horizons are working hard to fill the gap by helping individuals to get certified.

We are noticing that the three biggest areas of demand for IT Pros are around the fields of Business Intelligence, IT Security and Application Development. Courses such as CompTIA’s A+ and Network+ are great for getting new workers started in IT and from there IT Pros they can choose their area of speciality. Our most in demand courses and certifications in the Microsoft world are Windows Server, SQL and .NET.  Also as already mentioned, Cloud related courses and certifications will be growing in demand over the coming year.

We are committed to keeping pace with the IT industry and to make available the most needed training courses for the benefit of employers and individuals in this market – and also throughout all of our 300 worldwide locations.

Again, it’s great to be here in Sofia and to welcome all of you to New Horizons Sofia! On behalf of New Horizons I would like to thank you for your business past, present and future and look forward to growing the relationship between our organisation and yours’.

Blagodarya!“

Peter Ingle
Regional Director New Horizons Computer Learning Centers

Sofia
September 13th, 2011