As current electives go under the ax, MCSEs can only guess how relevant their certs may be in a year's time.
Accelerated Demise
As current electives go under the ax, MCSEs can only guess how relevant their certs may be in a year's time.
- By Linda Briggs
- February 01, 2000
For most of the IT world, Microsoft’s announcement
that it will finally ship Windows 2000 on February 17
has been welcome news. At last! A multi-dimensional directory
structure, transitive trusts, better security, new user
controls, and on and on—along with plenty of work
for skilled professionals guiding implementations of the
new OS.
But for MCPs the release is proving to be a double-edged
sword. That’s because the certification and skills
assessment group seems to be retiring current exams and
pushing its 200,000 or so MCSEs worldwide toward Windows
2000 at an artificially rapid rate.
The announcement in mid-December of the expiration of
three more exams by the end of 2000 means that many NT
4.0 MCSEs will now have to take three to four exams to
maintain certification. Win2K is new and big, but that
new and big? I don’t think so. To add to the sting,
two of the exams being retired—TCP/IP and IIS 4.0—are
consistently among the most popular exams Microsoft administers.
That means that a majority of MCSEs will be affected by
the retirements. Are TCP/IP skills no longer relevant
in Win2K? Of course not. Is IIS 4.0 fading from the marketplace?
Hardly. Making so many MCSEs retake four out of six exams
implies that two-thirds of the knowledge tested for under
the NT 4.0 MCSE track is no longer valid. That simply
isn’t true.
And progressively expiring electives, as Microsoft appears
to be doing, makes things even more difficult. In effect,
no one knows now which electives will still be live when
2001 rolls around. We can surmise that the SNA 4.0, Exchange
5.5, and SQL 7.0 exams will remain valid, but those are
just guesses. The new track is being rolled out in such
bits and pieces that I’m not sure what to advise
the hundreds of MCPs and MCSEs who are emailing us for
advice. Finish the NT 4.0 track? Stick with what your
company uses? Almost any strategy is flawed if elective
exams that candidates choose to spend time and money on
now are suddenly retired.
When Novell recently upgraded its CNEs from NetWare 4.0
to 5.0, it required passage of a single exam. All electives
continued to be considered current. More relevant, when
it upgraded CNEs from NetWare 3.0 to 4.0, it required
a single exam. There’s a parallel there because NetWare
4.0, like Win2K, was the product upgrade that made the
leap from a flat file structure like the one NT 4.0 has,
to Novell Directory Services.
If Win2K takes off like Microsoft says it will, of course,
most of this will be a moot issue. There will be a huge
demand for Win2K MCSEs in 2000, and you’ll willingly
upgrade because your employer or client needs your skills
in the new OS. But what if it doesn’t?
In classical tragedy, the hero falls by the results of
his hubris. Microsoft is famous for many things, not the
least of which is driving the market forward at its chosen
pace. That strategy has worked in the past. Since we’re
all so closely partnered with the hero here, let’s
hope it continues to work. Send me your thoughts at [email protected].
About the Author
Linda Briggs is the founding editor of MCP Magazine and the former senior editorial director of 101communications. In between world travels, she's a freelance technology writer based in San Diego, Calif.