This is a copy of someone's opinion about Microsoft's certification's changes:
http://www.petri.co.il/read_more_mcse.html


Why did Microsoft retire the NT 4.0 MCSE track?


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To make it short: It's our fault (not entirely, but still, we have a part in it).

"Our fault?" you ask, "Why is it MY fault? What did I do wrong?"

"You" did it all wrong! When I see students cramming and dumping all week before their tests I want to scream! When I hear that the value of the MCP/MCSE certification is down the drain because of a massive eruption of cheap, un-trained, un-experienced work force, I want to change my job. When I see the wanted adds full of stuff like "MCSE with 4 y/o experience to flip burgers 3 days a week" I want to stop what I'm doing and tell you all that you're doing it wrong. People know nothing. They will tell you that the correct answer to your question is C or D, but they don't know why it is so, or if you change the words or re-phrase the question you see how they really know @$$.

What did you expect? That Microsoft would stand still while you cheat, copy, cram and downgrade it's most valued certification? Not long ago the MCSE certification was something only a few in the world had. I remember back in 1997 there were only 97 MCSEs here in Israel. In 98 there were 120 new ones, in 99 more than 600 new ones, and in 2000 - more than 1100 new certifications (I myself let out of my classroom at least 300 new MCSEs, not to mention all the hundreds of MCPs that dropped out or came only to stay for one or two courses).

I pity us all. We're in the same boat you know. I'm glad Microsoft retired the NT 4.0 track. It will leave all those thousands of paper MCSEs begging for mercy. Let them. They deserve it

The debate continues.....

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In my opinion MS "retired" the NT track is to force people to buy Win2k. Since there will be no more NT MCSE's in a while, the people in charge of buying stuff will start getting the newest version of windows to have a certified person to troubleshoot thier network. In truth it is a good marketing scheme, by elimanating the technical support they make it look like the companies need to upgrade.
Also if MS would like to raise the value of the MCSE they would have to switch to some sort of lab like the CCIE is. That way most of the paper MSCE's would be found out

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I somewhat agree that MCSE was devalued because of cheating, braindumps, etc. However, another thing that makes it easy to get an MCSE for NT is that the tests are a joke. Granted, I have been working with NT for quite sometime. But, I took the IIS 4.0 test never having seen IIS, and passed the first try. In fact, I didn't fail a single MS test. I'm not saying "I'm so smart I passed every MS test without failing in less than 3 months." In fact, I'm saying the opposite. I'm not the smartest guy in the world...nor the best engineer...and it didn't take much for me to get MCSE. Novell tests were much more difficult and were a more true representation of the candidate's knowledge of the product. The MCNE tests were even more difficult, and the CCNA was even harder. No wonder there are so many MCSE's...you don't have to "know" that much about the OS. You can usually just figure out the answer by the way the question is asked. I'm glad they're retiring the NT track. After all, when the product goes through an upgrade, so must the engineers that work on it. Novell has been doing this for years, Cisco is retiring their 1.0 track...it is a normal course of action.

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LANlord
MCNE,MCSE,CCNA

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I think you have some good points about the paper MCSEs of NT 4. However, I truly believe that the retiring of the track really has to do with the marketing of microsoft. People will be forced to take tests and pay Microsoft more money. I don't think Microsoft is all that concerned with the number of MCSEs. Just more money for them.

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T.J. McDonald
Instructor
New Horizons
MCT, MCP, A+, I-net+

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What's an MCSE worth these days??
Nothing according to a recruiter I spoke to today.
Since the answers are available via the Internet I don't know if it's even worth the $700 I spent on the exam fees!!

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Yeah, and a recruiter will also tell you years of experience aren't worth anything - at least when it comes time to haggling your salary. Don't believe a word they say. Any certification is worth what you bring to it, and how much your employer values it.

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