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MCSE Revolt Over NT4-W2K Plans
Bloob writes, "It seems that Microsoft, in an apparent attempt at leveraging MCSEs to encourage organizations to upgrade to W2K, is expiring the NT4 certificate very quickly, and offering a dubious upgrade route. Here is an open letter from Keith Weiskamp, CEO of Coriolis, a supporter of MSCEs, with over 2000 comments from MCSEs et. al, and a response from Microsoft. Looks like quite a revolt."
I'm in charge of policy for a medium-sized company's mission critical e-commerce servers, and we are currenly running Windows NT4 and IIS. In order to expand our e-commerce business we are currently considering upgrade options to take all of our computers to Windows 2000. This is enable us to make use of the superior reliability and extended scalability that Windows 2000 offers, and thus make us a better competitor in the expanding e-commerce market.
We have several MCSE-trained staff in my department whose job currently involves administrating the system, and it is my opinion that they must be fully trained in the use of Windows 2000 before we upgrade. Currently we have a test machine set up and they are using that to explore the advanced functionality of Windows 2000, but this advanced training course is a Godsend to our company, and we will spare no expense in making sure our staff are trained in the best operating system on the market. Unless our staff have these new qualifications then they will lose their worth to us, and we would have to find new staff to look after our network.
In a sense, MCSEs serve as an adjunct sales force and technical support arm for Microsoft. They are the best trained group of networking professionals on the planet; the world listens to them, and follows their advice and insight.
That's pretty much how MS sees the MCSE program, a way to force new software on the dumbed-down masses. Some bosses treat an MCSE degree higher than a four-year university degree.
I'm sure there are some MCSE's that know their stuff, I've known a few, but my experience with them in the corporate world isn't so favorable. We had one that though Microsoft invented DHCP, and the only way to fix some problem (after initial attempts) with the DHCP server/Domain Controller was to re-install NT Server on it. Then there is this fifty-something year old guy that got his MCSE and swore back when K6's came out he got a juiced up one doing 500+ Mhz, when the rest of the world was at 200. I could go on...
From my experience, there are far too many untrained network professionals "slipping" throught he cracks. I put that in quotes because I'll give MS the benefit of the doubt before I claim the are willing to give certificates to anyone who pays the fees. To me, a certification program wouldn't want so many dolts, as it would demean the integrity of the entire program. But as we've seen, this is a certification program with a huge marketting budget.
So folks, MS gave you that certification, which got you that job as a network professional, with a nice salary, the least you could do is to convince the company to upgrade to Windows 2000 now. That, my friends, is how they see you.
It's not really that these people don't want to support Microsoft, they do - they're committed to their products.
Their concerns are primarily logistical:
1) Microsoft is decertifying NT4 people before most corporations will have rolled out NT5.
2) This was a suprise change in policy that came too quick to be accounted for in corporate training budgets.
3) Making certification harder means they can't rely on MCSE Bootcamps as a source for cheap entry-level help.
Microsoft is doing the right thing, however. It wasn't that long ago that there were less than 5,000 MCSEs in the entire country. (I used to work with a guy who was MCSE #300-something on LanMan.) Before anyone was paying attention there were a million people in the program and corporations were using it as a hiring checklist. I know a few people that went and passed 7 tests without even a trivial desktop support job as experience. They have to kick a lot of the deadwood out of the system -- it's totally clogged right now.
Ironically, there's lots of potential for this to backfire. Novell found themselves in a similar situation when they introduced the significantly more complex NetWare 4 and NDS, and simultanously decertified much of their CNE support base. The net result was that quite a few people started working on NT and just never bothered to understand NW4/NDS. MS is now in a similar situation with NT5 and ActiveDirectory -- a good portion of the MCSE base might find it better to learn Linux than try to dive into that complexity and stay certified.
(My Disclaimer: MCSEI-NT4, haven't decided whether to bother staying certified or not.)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
As of IIS 5.0, which Coriolis is using, .asp pages containing no ASP code whatsoever get processed practically as fast as .html files, with hardly any overhead. There's not much downside to saving all the pages as .asp files, so that you don't have to bother renaming files if you want to add some code to it later. But I guess you didn't know that.
Or, maybe it's just ironic that you thought you knew more about server side processing of web pages than they did, when it turns out your knowledge is pretty lacking. :)
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Minesweeper Consultant, Solitaire Expert
[tip o the hat to Userfriendly.org...]
-- 100% MS-Free as of 4-4-1999, 11:47:38 PST. "The lapdance is always better when the stripper is cryin'" Free Kevin,
Keith Weiskamp, CEO of Coriolis, wrote:
Ha ha ha! Keithy boy, you don't get it!
This person seems to think that the -- ahem -- services provided by MSCEs are a response to the adoption of Windows. Wake up! The adoption of Windows is caused by the existence of MSCEs and other highly indoctrinated IT people.
You MSCEs are not there to support the Windows market. You are there to create it! Of course Microsoft is going to push you into Windows 2000. Does the word "duh" mean anything to you? How do you think NT4 ever got off the ground?!?
(Man, it feels good to get that off my chest. It is so fucking funny to hear people complain when Microsoft backstabs them. I remember when Tim O'Reilly bitched about Microsoft forcing NT Workstation to be limited to serving only 10 simultaneous connections, after he had gone to so much work to "legitimize" NT as a server. Damn, I must have laughed myself to tears on that one. It seems like the knife-in-the-back is always a surprise, no matter who you are. When will they learn? Bwahahaha! At least their whining makes for decent, if bittersweet, entertainment.)
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The real irony is that Microsoft is entirely, albeit indirectly, responsible for its own downfall. To-wit:
- Microsoft wrote and marketed the OS that made the Intel platform a commodity, enabling both Linus and the BSD folks to get off the ground in the early 90's, and also the Be folks later.
- They then proceeded to pile on the bloatware, tightly coupled and closed standard, to the point where fast, tight, loosely coupled code could not only outperform it easily, but was much more stable.
- Now they've proceeded to cheese off all the folks that were dedicated to their paradigm, and those folks are now looking for alternatives to preaching the Microsoft party line.
To quote somebody most folks equate with Bill Gates, "Now your failure is complete." No, I don't expect M$ to go bankrupt overnight. This is, after all, a multi, multi-billion dollar outfit; they can pay paychecks out of petty cash for quite a while. But this may well be the deluge that melts the giant's feet of clay...--
Timberrrrrrrrrrrr!
I used to agree, but then I started looking at leaving my current job. On the market, I think the cert makes a difference.
Now, don't get me wrong. I don't think it means much. I've learned some studying for these tests, but after using NT, 95, VC++, VB, IIS, etc for years, I was hoping it'd be a walk in the park.
Instead, I get tested on the stupidest shit you can imagine just because they need to ask the questions on SOMETHING. I don't regret my choice, I think it will do nice things for my potential sallary, but as a new MCSE, MCDBA and next week a mcsd, the letters don't mean much except for a few extra $$ while negotiating the contract.
on the other hand, I really get peved when people assume I'm an MCSE so I a)Love MS and b)Am and idiot.
I was configuring TCP/IP on Linux when you were just a pup! getouttahere! This just happens to be what I make money doing.
back on topic:
Oh, and the mcsd tests don't tend to expire as quickly as the others. More useful, too.
-- IANAEG - I am not an elder god.
Reasons to get rid of 4.0 tests:
1: The MCSE is becoming rapidly devalued.
There are ads/banners for "become a fully fledged MCSE in x weeks". Microsoft needs a way to block off all the people who have their MCSE with no training and actually get the perception that having an MCSE is worth something again.
As it is now, if someone says they have it, you have no idea if they achieved it from years of hard work, or from a few thousand dollars and a study guide.
My guess is that the idea is that the 2000 tests are supposed to jettison the bootcamp MCSE's and keep the good ones.
Personally I dont think that will work as there are too many companies out there making up "practice exams" etc. such that all the bootcampers will just go back for 2000 training and keep getting their cert.
2: nt 4.0 is EOL. (end of lifed)
Well I disagree with that too. I'm pretty sure that people will still be running it well into 2002, if just for the fact that it runs relatively stable on lower end systems (aka 1997/8 higher end systems). Not to mention the pricetag of upgrading software.
Reasons to keep 4.0 tests:
1: It shows the person has some knowledge of microsoft products.
Well yes, it does show "some measure" of understanding. However the entry point for that can be significantly low.
2: Good PR.
3: Like the man said, not a lot of people will have converted over to 2000 by the cutoff date: 12/31/01 (or 6/30 if you tested on IIS3.0)
Some notes:
1: No cert can be made "bootcamp" proof, people go in, smuggle out thier questions, post them as braindumps on web sites etc. (no matter how much legalese they have to click on)
Just a few thoughts
-- C
Your error is in assuming that /.ers have no other experience with MCSE's or other certifications. I know a lot of MCSE's, and I would definitely say that the vast majority of them lack a lot of knowledge. ("Looks like you need to reinstall Windows." Way to ascertain the root cause, dude!) I worked for an MCSE once, and it quickly became apparent that she know virtually nothing about TCP/IP. Considering that she was the Manager of Internet Operations at an ISP, that was a severe handicap. And there are countless more examples. I would say that easily 80% of the MCSE's I've run into know crap, not even including the jokers who are studying for it now.
OK, there's nothing saying that an MCSE is automatically a fan of Microsoft. And I don't think anyone is saying that it's pointless to know Microsoft products.
The point remains that there are too many MCSE's out there who know next to nothing for the rest of us to be able to put any credibility into that certification. Other certifications may not necessarily work you harder, but my experience has generally been that admins certified on, say, Solaris, typically know more and are more competent, even if the test isn't massively harder.
"You can never have too many elephants on your team."
M$ is actually trying to get it's act together here. They know as well as anyone that the MCSE isn't worth anything. They just created it to be buzzword compliant, "Sure we have a certification". So now they actually want to make it mean something and the people who believe their certification means they are 31337 computer gods while in fact not knowing crap are getting pissed.
Well hot tip folks: That's what you get for taking the easy way out as opposed to learning your business.
---CONFLICT!!---
Hmmm....MCSE.....?
-- WhiskeyJack, tossing out whatever came to mind in ten minutes....
And, of course, using .asp pages with static content is a good way to screw up a lot of caching, which slows down at least my reloading time from a fraction of a second to several thousand times that... so maybe there are other reasons for not using .asp when it isnt needed, eh?
Why?
My guess is this: Microsoft is hurting for money. (oh, stop laughing! I'm serious!) Microsoft depends on the _perception_ that it has so absurdly much money that it can do or buy anything. Lots of that is 'virtual' money, tied up in stock valuation, and there are also concerns about the accounting procedures used at MS, plus they have expanded so much that they've basically lost the 'start-up' energies that they once had. Apple suffered exactly the same fate in the days of never-shipping Copland and all those neat Apple-funded science projects that Jobs basically threw out. Apple nearly died of it, few people saw them as a dominant force strong enough to make their weak finances insignificant.
In a way it's like Amazon to the Nth power- Amazon doesn't earn money, instead they try to maintain a valuation based on their chances of dominating online bookselling. Microsoft does dominate: does that mean that they earn more than they spend? That's a good question. That is _the_ question to ask as MS continues buying stuff and launching grand huge projects to theoretically maintain their empire. Ask yourself how much, do you think, it cost them to bring Windows Me to its current (dubious) state? For that matter, how much did they spend on the name? Odds are it was some shockingly large sum. The amount of overhead and bureaucracy they have to deal with staggers the mind- _and_ they have piracy to contend with, as in full-on bootleg copying of their wares including all the packaging and stickers, plus the less formal copying that's always been rampant.
People behave as if Microsoft can't possibly be in financial trouble. I think this is a fallacy- particularly now, with no major product expected but Win2K which itself gets a 'wait and see' rating from the Gartner Group. I don't think it's reasonable to assume they can go blithely on for another year without _seriously_ big profit centers from something major and current- and if they are trying to make this profit center out of MCSEs, they are fscking desperate! I say this is blood in the water, and it's not all MCSE blood.
Must
Consult
Someone
Experienced
'nuff said.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Disclaimer - I'm working on my MCSE
MS owns the exams. They will behave capriciously and arbitrarily if they want to. They are the only game in town when it comes to NT certs. Deal with it.
If you want to do something to Microsoft, then don't support their products. Don't buy their software, their training, or their certifications. In a politely worded letter, let Microsoft know the reason for your decision. Describe specific situations where you have steered clients away from MS and to a competing solution (MS would fit this category). Don't offer to change your mind.
Don't be so naive as to think that an open letter will have any more effect on Microsoft than it would on the U.S. Marines ("Dear General, We think killing is bad..."). MS (the masters of marketing and perception) knew exactly what its MCPs would think of its policies, so congratulations to those who confirmed what market researchers told MS ages ago...
> Hopefully Microsoft's new program will limit the certification to those that truly understand the material
Where?s the profit in that?
You might as well ask them to produce fewer software products so that they can ensure that the rest is top quality stuff.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
The other thing that I find amusing is that if you have certifications from certain other vendors such as SUN, Novell, or Banyon Vines, you don't have to take as many certification tests to obtain the MCSE. That is because they (their competition) are aware of just what it takes to get the certification. This also works in reverse. The reality of the IT environment is that you are going to run into MS products. Wither or not you like their products or business practices is really not relevant. It's no different than learning Cisco if you want to get into WAN's and routers.
Save the flames, I have and am learning to use Linux.
notice that the people who are most likely to get screwed by MS are always the ones who are closest to them, busisness wise or professionally. Perhaps they would consider changing their often snide attitude toward Linux, and the Linux community and quit trying to shove MS down our throat. This really isn't about MS at all, it's about this attitude that people have that if you just stick with the status-quo corporate America they'll take care of you and everything will be ok......
It's not a revolt if all people are doing is complaining. To the contrary: People tend to complain instead of taking corrective action, as many classic studies have amply demonstrated.
Dear MCSEs who are following this story: Watch closely, and you'll notice that you're being given the opportunity to vent your frustration, to give "input", to register your protest voice. That is how the game is played: You're presented with a fait accompli, and then given an opportunity to make futile, powerless gestures all about how annoyed you are.
This is one of life's intelligence tests. The way you pass is by declining the opportunity to protest, and instead act to fix the underlying situation. Or, be honest with yourself and admit that you're going to cave in. But don't waste your time protesting.
Consider how you came to be in this bind, and you'll see you've slowly moved into a certification relationship that's not working. Your best move is to say "No thanks": The only way to win this game is not to play.
When Redmond is done saying it's considered "your thoughts and concerns", has finished "helping you understand", and has ceased portraying your anger as "confusion", just ponder whether you will ever want to be in a position to be conned by these people again. There are healthy business relationships to be found, and good people to work with. Your first step towards finding them will be to say "Thanks, I'll get back to you", and start looking elsewhere.
Either that, or admit that you're dependent on Microsoft, and, as a business decision, will do what you're told. That's your decision to make -- but there's no need to kid yourself about the supposed value of protest, on your way to that course of action.
-- Rick Moenrick@linuxmafia.com
The Microsoft Certified Software Engineers are revolting!
revolting
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