Microsoft and Cisco play top trumps with exam providers Microsoft and Cisco have been playing tit for tat with rival exam providers Prometric and Pearson Vue. Network giant Cisco today announced a "primary-vendor strategy" by choosing to drop Prometric and retain Pearson Vue as its sole exam provider. Meanwhile, software behemoth Microsoft had already quietly decided to ditch …
When I sat my first NT4 MCP exam eons ago, I passed and went away quite happy. The certificate duly arrived in the post, then 6 weeks later the rest of the exams arrived unheeded as well. Then my MCSE, plus a CNE qualification to boot. Since then, I have received my W2K MCSE and also W2K3, plus a smattering of Exchange qualifications. Not to say I am by any means a crap Admin, (I'm not) its just, how shall we say, my career has benefited from the qualifications. I trust the person who actually sat the exams has also got his certificates, and there is not a day that goes past that I do not thank this man. My name is not exactly common, but there you go. I just hope he goes into VMWare in a big way, as that is my current specialisation. Posted anonymously (obviously) to protect my livelihood...
Both VUE and Prometric were invited to tender for Microsoft's new single-vendor exam system.
VUE claims they don't know why they didn't win the tender, but is that so unusual? Tender losers aren't always told details of *why* they lost, simply that someone else submitted a better bid.
The fact that Prometric is regarded as the inferior provider by many due to poor customer service and technical problems, yet still won this tender, is a source of heated debate in insider circles.
Regardless, Microsoft's decision is final, which means for better or for worse we're stuck with Prometric... until Microsoft changes their minds again :-)
The two most generic fields in I.T. today. I am always happy to see people looking to move into technology. Todays ads promise amazing salaries with Microsoft or Cisco certification. That is just not the case. The good salaries are reserved for Unix or Linux experience. Business runs on these platforms. The ads produce a widespread commodity of these skills which further acts to reduce the value. When the skills to run the platform are this generic, you get a generic platform. It is a self fulfilling prophecy. A platform so generic can't do anything of significant value.
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