Thursday, September 5, 2013

What will Microsoft Professionals aspire to now?

Microsoft on Friday August 30 2013 announced that it would be retiring the MCM, MCA and the MCSM programs. What the???  While I am not an MCM obtaining the MCM or MCSM for Exchange and/or Lync has been a long time goal for me as I am sure it has been for many other professionals out there. A copy of the email that was sent out announcing the retirement of these prestigious certifications can be found on Neil Johnson's Technet Blog.

What will the elite certification be now? Will MS try to revamp this or is this a sign of the movement to a devices/services organization that Microsoft is aspiring to be and will not require such elite professionals in the community?  An open plea so to speak has been posted on the Microsoft Connect site by Jen Stirrup asking Microsoft not to get rid of these programs. The comments on this post are a definite indication that these are still a valued commodity.

In a reply to the plea and comments on the Microsoft Connect site Tim Sneath from Microsoft states that this was a long hard decision that took months to make, they evaluated things like how many people are certified, what is the recognition for these certs and the availability (US English only) and it came down to a simple fact that while it was a successful program for those that were in it the program itself was not enough. Tim went on to Further say that this is not a complete cancellation of an elite certification but a 'pause' to come up with something better. With the further explanation it does not sound as hopeless as the original letter t the current MCMs but you would think that it would have been phrased this way from the beginning not as an after thought after all the backlash.

I for one am hoping that in the wake of this announcement and the community uproar that Microsoft will be announcing (sooner rather than later) a new set of certifications or something along the lines of better that were so cryptically eluded to. Till then I will continue in my path to be better at what I do.

No comments: