[Asterisk-Users] [Asterisk-Dev] RE: [Asterisk-biz] Asterisk training andcertification :: AstriconTraining

[Rich Adamson]

> I'm in agree with Brian for the following reasons:
> - By principle I'm against the certification: it is not a proof of 
> knowledge.
> - Certification is discriminatory: only the people from the "first 
> world" should be certificated, USD $ 3.275,00 is one year salary for 
> many  engineers in developing countries. If you add travel, hotel, etc. 
> it can reach 2 year salary.
> 
> Why they do not post the 150 question exam in the web and provide 
> certification for peoples who answer correctly? Free of course.
> 

Ease up gentlemen. Certifications don't mean anything in most environments,
and particularly in asterisk work.

Certifications have been used by manufacturers for years, but mostly from
a marketing and sales perspective. In other words, its another source of
revenue for the _company_ (primarily) and establishes some level of bragging
rights for their _sales_ people when trying to convince a customer to buy
their stuff. It's really a very small piece of market differentiation
and nothing more. (Don't get me wrong, there are a few very well respected 
certifications and those have some meaning behind them. But, they only
have value when a fairly large group of individuals are attempting to
sell the exact same customer, or in employee promotions. This is certainly 
not the case with asterisk at this time in any city.)

Anyone can develop a training course and anyone can print a piece of
paper that says your certified. If you don't like the one proposed, then
develop your own list of 150 questions, complete the answers, and print
yourself a piece of paper for free. You'll get the exact same effect.
Your customers and/or employer will never check into the questions that
you had to answer, and over half the time certified people don't have
skills to accomplish the objective anyway (particularly when there isn't
an industry-respected skills test at the end).

On the other hand, many on the -Users and -Dev list already know there
is a dramatic need for education, and this one just happens to be one 
that has stepped up to the plate. Given the stated price, it won't help
the 80% that are trying to implement * at home with a $10 pstn card
though. :(

I hope they expand the training effort to not only address "how to"
configure and deploy *, but maybe sometime in the future address 
topics related to * development as well.

Rich