Microsoft's ^@&^#&@ W2K MCSE Policy
Like over 800,000 other people, I spent an incredible amount of
time and effort studying to be an MCSE (Microsoft Certified
Systems Engineer). I took six classes, studied several books
from cover to cover, took practice tests and used the knowledge
in my job and on my own time. Why did I do all of this? Because
I wanted to have one of the most prestigious certifications in
the field - the MCSE!
For those of you who don't know, the MCSE consisted of six tests
designed to ensure that system administrators meet a minimum
level of experience and knowledge with Microsoft products. The
concept is this gives guidance to managers as to who they should
and should not hire, and ensures that those people know how to
use Microsoft products.
In my experience, people who honestly pass the MCSE exams are
indeed better qualified for their positions than others with
equivalent experience and skills. Of course, boot camps, brain
dumps and similar methods of cheating the process tend to allow
people to dishonestly pass the exams. This, however, is true
with all certifications (and tests for that matter) and not
unique to the MCSE series.
In their attempts to get people to upgrade from Windows NT 4.0
to Windows 2000, Microsoft has run into quite a bit of
resistance from the industry. While there are very significant
reasons to upgrade, Windows 2000 requires major changes in
network configurations, applications and user training, which
has tended to slow acceptance. In addition, since Windows 2000
was released around the time of large expenditures on the Year
2000 bug, system managers found themselves without funds or
manpower to upgrade their networks.
In order to force people to upgrade more quickly, Microsoft has,
in it's infinite wisdom, decided to retire the Windows NT 4.0
certifications. Thus, on December 31, 2001 any and all MCSE
certificate holders who still have not upgraded will need to
remove those four letters from their resume and business cards.
It now appears that over half (at least 400,000) of these MCSE's
will be invalid in under five months! I know from experience
that the change from Windows NT to Windows 2000 is not an easy
one, and given that many people actually have to work for a
living it's not surprising that so many of them have not had a
chance to obtain the new certifications.
There is also a large amount of anger about the policy. It
appears that Microsoft is only interested in increasing it's
bottom line, which translates into selling an endless procession
of upgrades to the operating system and the office suite. It's
plainly obvious that Microsoft feels it's dollars come from
these upgrades, and thus those engineers who cannot or will not
upgrade their certifications have little or no value.
Even worse is that Microsoft has started the path towards
Windows XP certifications! A large number of MCSE's have not
even started (much less finished) their training for Windows
2000, and now they have to figure out how to upgrade that to
Windows XP! And, of course, it's a sure bet that the next
version of Windows will follow very quickly after that.
Me and several of the people who work for me have obtained the
MCSE certification for Windows NT 4.0. Given that we all work
very long hours (a 60 hour week is a short one) and have lives,
it's a miracle that even some of is found time to pass these
exams.
And now Microsoft is saying that we are no longer valuable. They
are directly implying that we are not worthy of their greatness
because, well, we are too busy actually putting their products
to work to take the time out to study and pass the exams.
We do want to pass the exams and we do want to become certified
on Windows 2000. Every single person that works for me strongly
desires to pass these tests. Our objection does not come from
the fact that the tests exist or that Microsoft is raising the
bar or improving their products.
Our objection is the underhanded, sneaky and downright unethical
way that Microsoft is forcing us to put pressure on our company
and our employers to needlessly upgrade over and over again. The
pressure comes from every aspect of Microsoft - from forced
upgrades via their licensing practices to their forced
certification policies.
Let's play devil's advocate for a minute and see what we can
learn. Perhaps Microsoft has to do this because they are more
intelligent and have a wider vision than the rest of the world.
Microsoft knows they have a far superior product, and in order
to ensure that we lesser beings provide the best value for our
companies, they are requiring us to upgrade our knowledge.
Heaven forbid that companies (especially large ones) actually
keep Windows NT 4.0 installed on their networks (much less
Windows 95 or 98). To allow that would be completely
irresponsible of Microsoft, wouldn't it?
Okay, enough of that! Now I'm getting sick to my stomach!
The problem that many of us are facing is that we are stuck with
what we've got. We have already invested so much in Microsoft
products that it would be extremely difficult to switch to
something else. In addition, Windows NT 4.0 SP6a is a reasonably
reliable operating system, and the Office 2000 suite is
exceptional.
However, every once in a while I get a little whimsical thinking
back to the good old days, when I used to run our multi-billion
dollar company on two large VAX machines. That's ALL of our
applications, every single one of them. Plus hundreds of users,
over fifty printers and fax machines and numerous other things.
In fact, we ran payroll, accounting, order processing, delivery
scheduling, human resources, printing, communications and
everything else on those two machines!
To top it all off, we ran for over ten years on these VAX
machines without a major operating system upgrade! Yes, there
were problems, but constant retraining, reinstalls, service
packs, hot fixes and weekly major security alerts were not among
them. And compared to the clustering in OpenVMS (the operating
system for the VAX and Alpha hardware), the "clustering" in
Windows 2000 is a complete joke!
And now I need over 150 servers running Windows NT 4.0 and
Windows 2000! The really sickening thing is I'll bet I could run
everything on a dozen or so Unix or Linux servers, or, again,
two big Alpha (the successor to the VAX) systems. (It's really
too bad that Digital Equipment Corporation, which made the best
hardware and operating systems on the planet, could not market
their way out of a paper bag).
I think that's what is annoying is and many of our peers the
most. The constant need to spend an outrageous amount of time to
keep up with the new releases from Microsoft.
I know it doesn't fit into Microsoft's hostile "do it our way
and pay us for the privilege" business model, but we would much
prefer a different approach to the MCSE certification model.
Instead of constantly rolling it forward constantly,
invalidating the certifications of those who cannot keep up, why
not just append the operating system to the certification?
Why not just make a "MCSE Win4.0" and an "MCSE Win2000"? To me
as a manager, it would be far more valuable than the current
catch-all scheme. Look at it this way, I could scan a resume for
"MCSE Win3.1", "MCSE Win4.0" or "MCSE Win95". Wouldn't that make
it easier for me as a manager? You bet!
However, it wouldn't help Microsoft's bottom line, would it?
Fortunately, I am not in the business of helping Microsoft's
profit margin. In fact, on my list of worries, that wouldn't
even be in the top million! My job, and the job of each and
every person in our company, is to support our users by giving
them tools which enable them to do their jobs.
To do that, we will get certified on Windows 2000, and probably
Windows XP after that. However, we will do it on our schedule,
fitting the training and testing time around our jobs and
personal lives. In the meantime, we will take a closer look at
other alternatives to Windows and Office, because, well, well
really don't like this situation. We may, or we may not, change
to those alternatives, but before this we were not even looking
... now we are.
Additional Information
The Certification Debate
http://internet-tips.net/Careers/certifications.htm There is a
huge debate out there in the computer world - to certify or not
to certify. Here's my two cents.
Microsoft's Licensing Model (Sigh)
http://internet-tips.net/Microsoft/licensing.htm You would think
that Microsoft would want to make it easy to give them money,
wouldn't you? Think again.
What's Up With Microsoft?
http://internet-tips.net/Microsoft/whatsup.htm Microsoft stock
has been going down all through 2000. Here's an opinion as to
why.