New Kids on the (Certification) Block

Once upon about five tons of hair gel and many, many dope threads ago, a vocal quintet from Boston (more specifically from Dorchester) burst onto the late-1980s music scene with the release of smooth ditty called "Please Don't Go Girl." Thus was the origin of New Edition. Or was it N Sync? Or maybe that's how Backstreet Boys came to be. Or it perhaps could have been 98 Degrees. The point is not what they called themselves, but that they were part of a teen boy band new wave.

(Just in case you think these things every really go away: The boy band new wave of the 1980s has lately become the throwback sensation of the 2010s. Joey, Donny, Danny, Jonathan, and Jordan got the band back together in 2007, after a 13-year hiatus. They found a new groove, recorded and released some new music, and are presently touring with other '80s nostalgia acts on the appropriately named Mixtape Tour that kicked off earlier this month in Cincinnati.)

Like boy bands, IT certifications come and go, and sometimes even come back again. Tech industry association CompTIA launched an "IT Fundamentals" certification in 2014 to help tech newcomers get grounded in the basics of IT. Four years later, IT Fundamentals was refreshed and rebranded to weave it into CompTIA's familiar "+" nomenclature. At the end of July, TestOut will release IT Fundamentals Pro, bringing our unique training paradigm to the ITF+ universe.

That's not all that you're getting from TestOut this year, however: In August, we'll launch our new Ethical Hacker Pro training, which aligns with one of the hottest cybersecurity certifications on the market: Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) by EC-Council. With TestOut's LabSim learning platform, Ethical Hacker Pro students will be able to experiment with actual hacking tools and scenarios, all without endangering physical equipment or risking the ire of law enforcement officials.

That would be a pretty stunning year for just about any training and certification company. TestOut, however, has already released new versions of our PC Pro (CompTIA A+) and Linux Pro (CompTIA Linux+) training. And the cherry on top of the course development sundae with be an overhaul of our Office Pro (Microsoft Office 2019) training that also launches in August. Talk about hangin' tough. It's going to be great summer to get certified — don't touch that radio dial.