Mule,
...if we were talking about a vendor other than Microsoft, you might have had a point. As it is, MCPs, like most certs, were (and still are?) massively oriented around making your product stand out at the expense of all competition (perceived or otherwise).
You may want to crack open one of the old official MSFT-blessed textbooks sometime: it's all about insuring that the 'students' never even think to consider any alternative. Also note that I didn't mention the folks "holding such exams", since those people are often third parties.
Dude, you don't have a clue don't you? Microsoft certifications are about Microsoft products, they are not about technology in general. It is clearly stated, you are taking the training and the exam on Microsoft technologies, typically it's even a single product. So it's not that the product stands out from others, there is just that product by definition. Take it, or move on and invest in another certification. WTF do you expect from a certification like "Windows Server 2008 Network Infrastructure, Configuring"? That they talk about Linux? What do you expect from "MCTS: SQL Server 2008, Implementation and Maintenance"? That they tell you about Oracle or one of the NoSQL nonsense du jour?
You kind of missed the point, and you inadvertently amplified why it is that experience trumps certification.
Yeah, sure, I missed the point. Then again maybe there's just a problem with you completely missing why Microsoft certifications are useless. But what can I expect from someone with a nick like Penguinisto...
There are really own two certs I respect: Cisco's CCIE and Oracle's OCM. Both require hands-on lab demonstrations of skill. (Is RedHat doing that now, too?)
Add Microsoft MCM for SQL Server to that. Can't comment about other MCMs but the SQL one is a good one.
All other certs are undervalued by dumps. Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco - you name it, all you need to do is buy or torrent the questions online, memorize the answers, and go in and take the test. Literally, anyone with zero knowledge of the material can do this. It's laughable.
This is the main problem, questions never gets updated and you typically have a total of 300 different ones. Too simple to memorize them and pass the exam. Even changing the questions from time to time may not be a good solution as there are not many different, good, questions you can come up with. IMO the only serious solution is that you get examined by a human being that is a Subject Matter Expert or that you have to pass a long and hard laboratory explaining in writing why you choose certain solutions. Then again this is what already happens with better certifications as the one mentioned above.
When I've been involved in hiring, I've never really paid attention to someone's certs. I'd certainly hire someone with several years of hands-on experience in a technology who wasn't certified over someone with no experience who was.
Fully agree. Then again, there are some weakness also with this strategy. In the database industry there are myths and bad designs that are constantly passed through generations from "experienced" people that never really understood the problems.
The last time I bothered was for Windows 2000, and only then because the employer at the time demanded it. Not sure if it has changed, but back then you only needed to know that according to Microsoft, only a Microsoft-based solution to any given problem was considered sufficient. This was in spite of the fact that it often didn't make sense.
Maybe you should get a bit more realistic... it's not the case that when you study for the Oracle Certified Master exam, they tell you how simpler and more cost-effective would be to roll out Microsoft Analysis Services. If you take a certification with a vendor that provides multiple products, they will always teach you how to solve problems with their products. Duh.
I suspect things haven't changed much, and in my humble-but-professional opinion, someone with only the cert (and little-to-no experience) usually meant that they were superbly trained as marketing zombies, but were absolutely worthless as sysadmins.
You misspelled dumb. They are worthless as sysadmins because a low-level technical exams is worth only to assess whether at least you opened the product's manual. Yes, worthless exams, but pretending the people holding such exams were trained by marketing people is simply dumb.
(...example? Clicking "cancel" when Task Scheduler demands a password in Server 2k8 will lock out an AD account in a hurry. Neat little bug, but one of the zillions of subtle things a sysadmin would know, but an MCSA would not.)
So you are suggesting that people get trained also on bugs and that training material gets constantly updated? Really?
It seems you have wrong espectactions, those certifications are made to measure that you know the basics of how a product works, or more precisely how a product works according to the documentation, not your real life experience with it or what you know about bugs.
We may agree that there's little value in those certifications but at least they provide a first level (very coarse) of screeing for people that don't even have a clue.
To measure real life experience, you have to look at different certifications for example, talking about Microsoft, the Certified Master and Certified Architect. I can't comment on all of them, but for the SQL Server MCM I know the exam is both written and you have to solve real life scenarios in a lab (the exam takes 8 hours and most people don't have time to complete it 100%).
Marketing explains initial buy-in, but not repeat customers.
Care to back up this with some facts?
If Apple's success were only marketing, they would have to attract ridiculous amounts of new customers to replace the ones fleeing the platform. That's not the case.
Care to explain why you assume that a ridiculous amount of old customers would flee from a mediocre product with good marketing? Or you simply think this is how it works?
Last I read, the iPhone has something like an 80% retention rate.
So, by the same reasoning, Internet Explorer 6 was a great product (mind that there were already plenty of good, free, alternatives). Some times initial marketing (which may include borderline monopolistic tactics) gets the bulk of the people. After, people don't leave for more simple reasons. Resistance to changes, complete disinterest in technical specifications, etc. etc. The vast majority of people are not geeks, they invest time in learning the tool, they build repositories of personal information around it, it takes something they consider a big thing to convince them moving to something else and it's not necessarily something technical.
The iPhone 5 is the most-anticipated phone out there, and Apple has said nothing about it.
This kind of indirect marketing is so old you can smell dust from miles away.
Clearly, people must buy their products for more reasons than Apple's heavy marketing push.
So you make up some premises and then you, clearly, draw your own conclusions? Fair enough, you may as well pat on your back yourself because I'm not going to do it.
Status? The only Apple device anyone ever sees me with is an iPhone, and that's hardly a status symbol--almost everyone I know has one. The iPhone was a status symbol when it first came out, but not now. Apple may be a status thing for some people, but if so, that's ridiculous.
You know, this seems to make some sense at first sight. What is considered as a status symbol is completely in the eye of the beholder which in turn depends on his social class (ok, I know it's not fashionable to talk about social classes anymore, get over it). People from the middle class used to consider the iphone as a status symbol at the beginning. Now everyone has it, still lower class people that can only afford less-than 100$ phone are considering it a status symbol. Rich people and public personalities buy stupid phones with diamonds for thousands of dollars to be sure to be different.
Other companies don't understand Apple, and so they think they can charge as much as Apple without doing all the other things that make Apple products such a joy to use for the average person. They are slowly learning that this isn't the case.
They understand Apple very well. Windows Phone 7 is much more a joy to use for the average person, just try it for a week or so. Yet, it's too late and MS never had someone that was able to generate fanatism among their customers (thanks God)
Many posters on Slashdot don't understand Apple, and so they post ignorant messages about Apple only being successful because of marketing.
But we are lucky because we can read you profund and enlighted thoughts and explanations, strictly facts-based. Not.
Their marketing is good. It's what gets lots of people to try their products for the first time. But marketing isn't what makes people repeat customers.
You're simply ignoring that brand loyalty is made up of a lot of things and, in many cases, quality and consumer advantages are down at the bottom of the list. In general, people are like sheep, they don't think a lot and are are generally under-educated. It just takes repeating messages, showing shiny bells and whistels and "group thinking" (or should I say un-thinking?). This is well-known since decades. Go, figure, try to find some dusty books, err sorry an App, with Noam Chomsky writings.
E = MC ** 2 +- 3db
