Developer Certification Changes

Hi Gerry, Is there a chance to team up with the Office group and deliver Expresssion as an MCAS exam? I used to teach Frontpage to a lot of business users and now teach them Expression Web to help them maintain small internet sites. The Expression products might lend themselves well to the simulation technology in the MCAS exams. Mike

Hi Mike, Well, I could check with them but I doubt they would fund the exam. It s not that MSL cut the funding, we weren t funding them in the first place. Expression and Office are two different business units so there isn t really a crossover on this product. Frontpage has now become the SharePoint Designer which is intended only for editing SP sites. Expression sits in a different group, even though it does the same thing that Frontpage used to do. But good idea though. :-) How s the east coast? Gerry

MCPD for Office SharePoint Server is a great idea. The architecture of sharepoint is different then your normal web app. I have encounter developers who don t have sharepoint development experience and have trouble in understanding the platform.

Apparently Microsoft doesn t want Expression to get used much. Why spend as much time and resources on a new technology if they aren t going to be serious about it in the enterprise? Come on Microsoft...get with the very program you helped create.

Sorry Jason, I have to disagree with you. Microsoft is still very serious about the Expression products and they do want it to gain market share and use with developers and designers. My post is stictly related to a certification for Expression for this year. That has nothing to do with adoption of the product in the marketplace or if Microsoft wants Expression to get used much. Developers and designers will use the products regardless of any certification plans. Certifications are designed to assess and validate skills on a technology for employers, not drive product adoption in the industry. Expression products are excellent tools and the fact that we won t have a certification for them this year in no way undermines anything about the product. We had discussions with the Expression product group folks and it was a mutual decision based on specific criteria that we evaluate. Gerry