32BitsOnline: Seeing MCSE go up in Flames

“I’m getting more than a little tired of watching my Network
Engineer certifications retire. I’ve been an MCSE for over two
years and I’ve held a CCNA for less than a year. And I’m currently
working on obtaining my CCNP. I’ve spent a great deal of time
and money in obtaining these certifications and feel that the job
market should dictate their retirement, not the marketing
department.”

“It’s in my opinion that, if Microsoft is going to retire my NT
4 MCSE, then they shouldn’t be able to collect fees on the licenses
anymore either. This pattern of pumping out the latest and greatest
operating system when it’s not ready just to satisfy stockholders
is bad enough. To bite the hand that feeds you is even worse.
Network Administrators and IT Directors are the number one reason
that these software and hardware companies can brag about their
genius at all. Instead of furthering their certification secondary
market by retiring the cert in favor of the latest and greatest
thing, they should focus on keeping their customers happy —
“Network Admins and Engineers.” After all, after service pack 6, I
just got my last operating systems under control and am not that
eager to begin debugging the next one.”

“And it’s not only Microsoft. Cisco is equally as guilty. Cisco
Systems places value on its certifications as being the most
difficult in the industry. Yes this is true, but not as you would
think. The difficulty in these tests is not in technical knowledge,
but is instead in the cheap little trick questions with a play on
words. After passing one of these tests you almost feel ripped off.
And of course, if you fail one, the feelings are the same, or
worse.”

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