The Wall Street Journal - USA (2020-12-01)

B4| Tuesday, December 1, 2020 **** THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.

BYJAMESRUNDLE

Cybersecurity Jobs Go Unfilled

Mismatch between

entry-level skills and

what employers seek,

exacerbates problem

The RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco in February.

WU XIAOLING/XINHUA/ZUMA PRESS

TECHNOLOGY WSJ.com/Tech CORPORATE WATCH

JACOBS ENGINEERING

Deal Is Set to Buy

PA Consulting Stake

Jacobs Engineering Group

Inc. agreed to buy a 65% stake

inPA Consulting, a consulting

firm that specializes in sectors

such as energy, financial services

and manufacturing.

The deal values PA at £1.83

billion, or roughly $2.4 billion.

The remaining 35% of PA will be

owned by its employees, follow-

ing the exit of majority stake-

holder, the Carlyle Group.

PA’s past work includes con-

tributions to the Virgin Hyper-

loop transportation system and

work on cell- and gene-therapy

manufacturing with Ori Biotech.

—Matt Grossman

JETBLUE AIRWAYS

Revenue Decline of

70% Is Forecast

JetBlue AirwaysCorp.saidit

now expects fourth-quarter rev-

enue to be 70% lower than the

year-earlier period, a more pessi-

mistic forecast than the 65%

drop the New York-based airline

had previously expected.

Fourth-quarter capacity will

be lower by 45% to 50%, JetBlue

said, compared with its previous

projection of a 45% drop. Book-

ing trends remain volatile be-

cause of the pandemic, JetBlue

said.

Average daily cash burn in

the quarter will likely be $6 mil-

lion to $8 million, compared with

the airline’s previous forecast for

daily cash burn of $4 million to

$6 million.

—Matt Grossman

PPG INDUSTRIES

Coatings Maker

Will Be Acquired

PPG IndustriesInc. said it

will acquireEnnis-Flint, a manu-

facturer of coatings and pave-

ment-marking products, in a deal

valued at $1.15 billion.

The addition of Ennis-Flint

will expand Pittsburgh-based

PPG’s mobility-technologies busi-

ness, said Michael McGarry,

PPG’s chairman and chief execu-

tive.

Ennis-Flint, based in Greens-

boro, N.C., creates products such

as traffic paint and raised pave-

ment markers, and has about

1,000 employees.

Full-year revenue for the pri-

vately held company is expected

to be about $600 million, PPG

said.

—Matt Grossman

COLLECTORS UNIVERSE

Investor Group to

Take Firm Private

Collectors UniverseInc. said

it agreed to be taken private by

an investor group for $75.25 a

share, or about $700 million, in

cash.

The deal represents a roughly

3.7% premium to Friday’s closing

price of $72.55 for the Santa

Ana, Calif., provider of authenti-

cation and grading services for

collectibles.

Collectors Universe said the

investor group is led by entre-

preneur and sports-card collector

Nat Turner, D1 Capital Partners

L.P. and Cohen Private Ventures

LLC.

—Colin Kellaher

The carrier said booking trends are volatile due to the pandemic.

DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG NEWS

Layers of corporate bureau-

cracy often add unreasonable

requirements to what should

be simple job postings, said

Neal Dennis, a threat intelli-

gence specialist at security

firm Cyware Labs Inc.

“There’s a misunderstanding, I

think, out the door of what the

[requirements] really should

be for junior, midlevel and se-

nior roles, and what those ex-

pectations are,” he said.

tions awarding such continuing

education certificates find it

puzzling they are a requirement

in entry-level job postings.

“You need five years of ex-

perience to have a CISSP,” said

Clar Rosso, chief executive of

ISC2, which issues the certifi-

cation. “Possibly the human-re-

sources recruiter doesn’t have

experience in the area and

they’re not able to say, wait,

that doesn’t even make sense.”

Cyber analyst roles adver-

tised in November at real-es-

tate firms, banks, consultan-

cies and other companies

across the U.S. routinely asked

for at least two to four years

of experience and knowledge

of advanced disciplines.

Professional bona fides, such

as the Certified Information Se-

curity Systems Professional cer-

tification, can be an advantage

for job seekers, but organiza-

Companies need millions
more cybersecurity profes-
sionals to fill roles around the
world, but researchers say
outlandish job requirements
are the problem, rather than a
lack of workers.
Around 3.1 million profes-
sionals are needed to bridge
the cybersecurity talent gap, a
trade association for cyberse-
curity professionals estimated
in a November report. The In-
ternational Information Sys-
tem Security Certification Con-
sortium, known as ISC2, said
world-wide employment in the
field would need to grow 89%
to meet security requirements.
However, excessive require-
ments for years of experience
and professional certifications
plus inflated expectations for
junior roles aren’t uncommon,
said Chase Cunningham, princi-
pal analyst at research firm
Forrester Inc. He said that re-
sults in the perpetual problem
of such positions going unfilled
because companies often target
overqualified candidates who
can command greater salaries
than these jobs tend to offer.

maintaining their own version

of those machines.

Amazon Web Services, as

the online retailer’s cloud

business is called, said it is in-

troducing Mac Mini computers

into its data centers so cus-

tomers can develop, test and

run their software remotely.

For Apple, helping Amazon

integrate its computers into

AWS could aid developers who

are at the heart of a software

and services strategy that is

an increasingly important

sales driver for the Cupertino,

Calif., company.

Initially, Amazon is install-

ing a version of the Mac Mini

that has been available for

some time, but David Brown,

an AWS vice president, said

the company intends to update

its hardware as Apple launches

new equipment. In November,

Apple unveiled a Mac Mini

powered by a chip it designed,

called the M1, supplanting In-

tel Corp. chips. Mr. Brown said

Amazon aimed to install M1-

based Macs in its cloud opera-

tions early next year.

“We’re going to support the

Mac operating system and Mac

machines—whichever ones

customers want access to,” he

said.

Many developers of soft-

ware running on non-Apple

hardware have been using

cloud services for years. But to

develop and test software for

Apple devices, they typically

had to buy and maintain their

own Macs, given the tight cou-

pling between Apple’s hard-

ware and software and the

lack of Mac hardware at major

cloud vendors. With its intro-

duction of Macs, Amazon is

betting that companies devel-

oping software such as iPhone

and iPad apps will be able to

improve their offerings more

quickly while avoiding the has-

sle of managing and scaling up

hardware they own.

Amazon.comInc. andAp-
pleInc. are joining forces to
support companies developing
apps and other software for
the smartphone maker’s de-
vices.
Apple developers histori-
cally had to buy the company’s
computers to make and fully
test apps for its devices. But
under the agreement the com-
panies disclosed Monday, Am-
azon is introducing Apple
computers and making them
available through its cloud-
computing business, enabling
developers to forgo buying and

BYASAFITCH

Amazon Provides Macs to Apple Developers

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