…according to Computerworld, at least.
Bart Perkins published an opinion piece earlier this week making the case that the pendulum has swung back to where it was a decade or so back, when certification was pretty much a requirement for any technical job.
Only now, there’s a new wrinkle in the era of outsourcing: Perkins argues that if your job gets outsourced, your certifications might determine whether you get a chance to go with it.
Perkins also predicts that as today’s certified IT Pros become IT Managers, certification will become a more common requirement, even (and especially) for senior positions.
Check it out here.
As MS is turning it's focus more & more towards the Cloud.. How the hell are we supposed to sell Tech-Courses & Certifications to those being outsourced? The greatest FU to any MCT and infrastructure in the biz. You kinda expect us to being satisfied teaching "How to license BPOS"? Get real people
Looking forward to teaching: "How to administer BPOS : Hard Core Licensing Online Services & Technologies in the Enterprise" next year :-/
I agree that this is the case. I work in Education and more and more outsourcing is being done for ICT in education. I encourage all my staff to certify, if for no other reason than to ensure they are credible candidates should they be outsourced.
This post was mentioned on Twitter by MSLearning: Certification is not an option http://bit.ly/9PMmvN
Clarification/correction about the amount of proliferation... The article says: "In 2005, Microsoft offered six technical certifications; today that number has increased to 46, and technical certification holders have nearly doubled, to 2.9 million."
Available 5 years ago (not counting Office or Dynamics):
1. MCP (in countless non-specified varieties)
2. MCDST
3. MCAD .NET
4. MCSD .NET
5. MCDBA 2000
6. MCSA 2000 and MCSA 2003
7. MCSE 2000 and MCSE 2003
8. MCT
That's 8, or 10 if you count 2000 and 2003 separately (which you should to be more comparable to today's version-proliferation); not 6 as claimed in the article.
Available today (not counting Office or Dynamics):
55 different MCTS
15 different MCITP
7 different MCA
6 different MCM
3 different MCPD (not counting different .NET versions)
3 different MCSE 2003 (regular, +Messaging, +Security)
3 different MCSA 2003 (regular, +Messaging, +Security)
1 MCDST
1 MCP (in countless non-specified varieties)
1 MCT
1 MCLC
That's *96* different certifications currently available! Even the 55 current MCTS varieties alone surpass the 46 total current Microsoft certifications claimed in the article.
Yeah, I thought it was strange math too, Alice, and a bit inconsistent (for example, why count every version of MCTS but not MCP? And the Messaging and Security speciaizations for MCSE and MCSA were available 5 years ago for both Win2000 and 2003, so why count them differently?)
Other than MCM and MCA, I think our family of certs isn't all that different from what it was... but I don't think the point of the article was the number of certifications available but rather the increasing demand for them. :-)
Hi Ken,
This link used to be maintained and available via the american MCT site - www.microsoft.com/.../certified.mspx
Now it is only available on the Austrailian MCP site and it has not beem updated since April 2008. I used these numbers to get an idea of competition and demand in specific certification areas. Is there a current link for this information?
I would like to use it to show students what areas fo specializations they might want to pursue.
Hermine - I too have been pleading for that page (the more-recently-active main-site version) to be brought back... it disappeared 3-4 months ago (and the updates every 1-2 months stopped 9 months ago). It was most recently located at www.microsoft.com/.../cert-overview.aspx (there's now only 4 tabs on that page); next before that, it was located at www.microsoft.com/.../certified.mspx .
----
Ken - Yes, I forgot to include +Security and +Messaging on my 2005 list; looks like they came out in 2003, so they should be on there, adding 8 more MCSA/MCSE 2000/2003 varieties, raising the 2005 total from 10 to 18! 3x the article's claim of 6.
Not counting the MCPs separately is understandable (thus I didn't either), since they aren't identified specifically on the certificates (just looked at mine to check) and you only really receive one for the first exam you complete (unlike MCTS, you can't officially earn more MCPs on other topics after your first).
But their math on all the other certs still is nowhere near adding up, lol! The author chose to use those specific numbers (and came up with them *some*how...?) instead of speaking in more general terms (or counting accurately). Obviously not the main point of the article, but I chose to comment on it anyway. :-p
(More demand/awareness/understanding/appreciation of certifications would be a nice development.)
Hi Alice and Hermine,
Yep, we don't maintain our certification counts on that page anymore, primarily because it was a real pain to keep up to date. (It wasn't automated at all, so somone on our team had to pull reports and type it in, and it always ended up being something we did when we had time... which was pretty rare<g>)
But if there's a particular credential or country you're interested in, I might be able to get you a one-time answer (I may regret making that offer if I get a ton of requests in this thread<g>)
Ken
Thanks! I would very much like to know what the numbers are for:
1a. MCTS: Windows 7 Configuration, total as of July 14, 2009 (or as soon after its release as possible)
1b. MCTS: Windows 7 Configuration, current total
2a. MCSE: Windows 2003, total as of the end of December 2009
2b. MCSE: Windows 2003, current total (to compare to USA portion)
2c. MCSE: Windows 2003, current total only in the USA (since you said you can look by country)
3. MCSA+Security: Windows 2003, current total
4a. MCSE+Security: Windows 2003, current total
4b. MCSE+Security: Windows 2003, total as of the end of October 2009 (the final update of the counts page had mistakenly used the number from the MCSA version)
5. MCSE+Security: Windows 2000, total as of the end of October 2009 (the final update of the counts page had mistakenly used the number from the MCSA version)
PS: An outdated page is better than nothing for people who haven't seen/saved it before. I think even if Microsoft can't bother to automate it or anything, the page should be re-posted and kept available. Add a line saying "Note: Updates may be sporadic" or something like that if it's a concern. Perhaps it could at least be updated quarterly (4x/year), or even 2x/year would be better than nothing, as long as it covers all the certifications released up to that point.