Born to Learn - Latest Comments in About those white borders…

Re: About those white borders…

Soup — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 21:40:55 -0000

Not all of us owns a printer, not to mention a borderless photo printer that can print A4 size, or a proper paper trimmer other than scissor.

Re: About those white borders…

Jessica — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 08:53:05 -0000

The white border is very ugly. I am very disappointed that Microsoft decided to stop offering a free hard copy of our certifications.

Re: About those white borders…

Alice — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:09:07 -0000

I noticed that the list on the MCP site of what welcome-kits you've previously ordered indicates which kits were mailed to you as 'Charter Member' kits. So they absolutely do have records of who got which 'Charter Member' certs, they just don't include it in the transcript.

Re: About those white borders…

Alice — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:13:39 -0000

Brian - Wow, you're right, mine are like that too! So it seems there really is no excuse for the digital certs not matching on all Charter Member certs.

Re: About those white borders…

Brian Jones — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 11:26:24 -0000

Just to put a spanner in the works, My MCITP - Enterprise support digital cert has charter member at the top, but neither of my MCTS's do.

Re: About those white borders…

Bing — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:34:09 -0000

Ken, please do supply the bleed version.

Re: About those white borders…

Michael — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:44:48 -0000

Yes,
Please supply the bleed version as well. (Good for online viewing)

Re: About those white borders…

james — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 02:33:45 -0000

Trying to fool? If you have soft copy of certificates than you can print 100s or 1000s (modified/pirated)copy of that. Will it “GOooooinG Greeeen”? Thats why people says MS means Ctrl+Alt+Del=”GOooooinG to Hell”.
If realy want “Going Green” think carefully before you…………!

Re: About those white borders…

Ken Rosen (Microsoft) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:24:56 -0000

Hey, Warwick: you're right! And here's where it gets complicated. :-)

Yes, it seems like we did offer charter certs for the WS2008 certs et al, but it appears that it was accidentally automatic (meaning that somewhere along the line it became an assumption that because we *had* been doing them in select circumstances that we would *always* do them. (Surprised us in the marketing team, since it wasn't supposed to work that way!)

To make matters worse--most of the ones you mentioned shouldn't have been "charter" certificates anyway; if anything, the should have been "early adopter" certs ("charter" is for a brand new certification, like MCITP or MCTS; "early adopter" is for a new version of the same certification, like the many different flavors of MCTS).

It all gets very confusing, even to us, which is why we decided to be selective about when we offer them--and that decision had/has nothing to do with our move to digital certificates.

As for what the system does or doesn't know--we don't have records (to the best of my understanding) of who earned a charter certificate; you are correct that we can tell what SKU we fulfilled through the mail, but that's not associated to a certification status. The digital certificate site keys off of the certs you've earned, not the kits you were shipped, so there's a disconnect there.

In any event--we're definitely not throwing out either baby or bathwater. We very well may offer charter certifictes in the future, but for now there are none imminent.

Re: About those white borders…

Warwick James — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:42:42 -0000

Just to clarify the misunderstanding that Charter exams 'haven't been offered in a while' -

Just looking through my history of sent certificates (via the MCP portal), I can see the most recent ones being for Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Administrator and Server Administrator, several for Windows Vista, and one for ISA 2006.

All, particularly Windows Server 2008, are recent products.

The first Windows 7 client exam beta-tested recently, and based on previous experiences, successful candidates would achieve 'Charter' for their efforts.

I always assumed this was time or number-based, and automated within the certification frame-work, rather than a marketing exercise.

True that the printable certificates that have been available online for ages via the Certificate Manager never reflect 'Charter' status - only the first physical REQUESTED kit would do that. But obviously if the system is already aware that a person is Charter, the digital system should be able to cope with this also.

In my case, I'm not really asking for the ability to retrospectively and repeatedly download my Charter certificates (although I still cannot see why this isn't possible, based on candidate number per TS exam), I'm concerned that the Charter initiative is being thrown out with the bath-water.

We're having the ability to request PHYSICAL Charter certificates away, hence the ability to request digital Charter certificates should be there instead.

Just my 2 dollars...

Don't take it personally - it sounds like the project was badly scoped from the get-go.

Re: About those white borders…

me — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:51:56 -0000

kevin: I have asked to "Read my previous post one more time and do not assume what I assume." Unfortunately You have done it again by "It seems like you’re trying to say ". Please read my words only and do not assume or guess what I'am trying to say. I'm not native speaker as you have probably guessed allready:)

I have never said that MS exams are expensive. For me prices are changing all the time - in last two-three years including rabate prices of MCP exams were changing even 6x for me! I guess it is similar to other people that do not earn in $ are were able to sign into 71(student) exams. Price doesn't matter for me as much - my time and work does. For time and work spent I would like to get certificate that is valuable on the market. Benefits like Wallet Cards are nice inexpensive reward for my work not for my dollars. I could pay for it.

Your last post makes sense in a part were you are comparing all expenses needed for achieving certificate. From me I could add that MS has really great and free materials for study. From my point of view there is one additional drawback with multiple exams for one cert - I have to travel quite long (in European) terms to nearest Prometric. It takes time and money.

Re: About those white borders…

Kevin — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:08:32 -0000

I don't see the point to your original post either. It seems like you're trying to say that even though individual exams cost less with Microsoft, the overall cost of the certificate is higher and therefore the benefits should be greater.

What I'm saying is that there are ranges of Microsoft certs, some of which cost $125 to test for, while other's cost $875. You obviously picked the most expensive certification because it skews the argument in your favor. I was merely pointing out that there are other Microsoft certifications that are much less expensive than Cisco/CompTIA/Novell exams and in some cases more valuable (especially compared to CompTIA).

Some certifications are much more valuable/useful than others. Those certifications usually end up costing more, but in all but the most extreme cases (MCSE) Microsoft's certifications are either cheaper or on part with other IT certifications.

If you wanted to get really crazy, you could compare the cost of an MCSE ($875 in exams) to the cost of a VMware VCP (over $3500, since you cannot earn the certification without first attending the course). Of course, then you'd probably want to complain that the MCM costs over $18,000 to earn.

Re: About those white borders…

me — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:46:44 -0000

Kevin you are putting words into my mouth that I haven't said. Read my previous post one more time and do not assume what I assume.

1. MCSE was an "example" it wasn't "every person".

2. I've mentioned that there are MCP (MCTS) exams also.

So I don't see a single point in your post.

Re: About those white borders…

Ken Rosen (Microsoft) — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:32:23 -0000

Rob, I don't think we've done charter member certs in a while--there's really no specific policy on it. It's basically a marketing decision: if we want to spark uptake of a new certification, we offer charter certificates as a way to boost initial interest.

So in other words, the answer to whether we'll ever do them again is: maybe. :-)

Re: About those white borders…

Kevin — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:47:36 -0000

me_do_not_believe_you, you're making two flawed assumptions there:

1. You are assuming that every person taking Microsoft exams is working towards a 7-exam cert (MCSE) as opposed to a 5-exam cert (MCITP:EA), three-exam cert (MCITP:SA), or a two-exam cert (MCITP:DBA 2008 and others) or a one-exam cert (MCTS).

2. You are assuming that the value of a single certification is the same regardless of the material that it covers. In other words, you're equating an MCSE certification (7 exams) with a CompTIA certification (1 or 2 exams) or a Cisco certification (1 or 2 exams) and saying that they should cost the same because you only get one certificate at the end of it. This is very clearly not the case.

Re: About those white borders…

Rob Hagman — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:45:56 -0000

Ken,

About your earlier comment about the Charter Member certs,

Does that mean that there will no future Charter Member Certs, or will those limited run certs still be printed and send the old way, if you achieve them ?

Rob.

Re: About those white borders…

me_do_not_believe_you — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:45:45 -0000

Compare prices of all exams needed to achieve certificate. While you are right than signle MCP exam is cheaper than Cisco or CompTIA, you need to remember than for example MCSE means at least 7 exams.

Re: About those white borders…

Kevin — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:15:23 -0000

You know, there is often times a tradeoff that people need to consider. As has been pointed out many times, the exam fees for MCP exams hasn't changed in a long time, even though Cisco, Novell, CompTIA, and other organizations have been increasing their fees. Once inflation has been accounted for, the exams have actually gotten cheaper (in terms of real cost) over the past 8 years.

Of course that's a bit of a specious argument, since the actual dollar figure has remained constant. But that constant dollar figure does represent less purchasing power today than it did 8 years ago. To expect the level of benefits to not change at all without some increase in cost is pretty unrealistic.

Compare the cost of an MCP exam to other exams, like those offered by CompTIA. CompTIA exams run from $180-$260 for a single exam, as opposed to Microsoft's $125 for all MCP exams. And the CompTIA exams offer much less of a benefit. With CompTIA you get one test, one certificate, and you have to pay for additional copies. You can't download digital copies of your certificates. There never have been CompTIA wallet cards, let alone digital wallet cards, and the certifications themselves are largely useless in the job market.

I'm frankly quite surprised that people are upset about changes in benefits given the price stability. But I suppose there's always someone who will complain about something.

Re: About those white borders…

Ken Rosen (Microsoft) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:34:22 -0000

Dave, I'm curious: to which removed benefits are you referring? I'm not aware of any benefits having been removed in years.

Re: About those white borders…

Dave G. — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:26:15 -0000

I don't feel as negatively as some and have been lurking for a while, but I have to speak up. Chris S - are you kidding? You must not have been here very long. Microsoft Learning has made a long string of blunders and continues to do so!

They may have the best of intentions with this "going green" thing. If this were the first, second of eleventh time they've taken benefits away, I don't think people would care as much. Every year they find a reason to eliminate something else.

The continue to set low expectations and then totally fail to meet them.

EPIC FAIL

Re: About those white borders…

SRMcEvoy — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:13:46 -0000

Is there a reason the PDF's are so large? I have a digital portfolio that is almost 30 pages that is about the size of 2 of these, and it includes much more?

Portfolio

Re: About those white borders…

Chris S. — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:50:21 -0000

MSL has done, and continues to do a wonderful job. Please don't let a very, very small number of nay-sayers sway your vaules. Go green and continue to move MSL forward! Thank you, Ken Rosen and team.

Re: About those white borders…

MSLearningContinuesToGoDownhil — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:38:11 -0000

Here's an idea - admit that this whole thing has been handled horribly and mail us the professionally printed certificates that we've earned.

Of course, I've yet to see MSL ever actually fix anything - so I won't hold my breath.

Re: About those white borders…

Ken Rosen (Microsoft) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:23:57 -0000

Okay, then, I'll see if we can get the ball rolling quickly on the full-bleed versions.

As for Steve Ballmer's signature, he was the CEO when each and every still-available certification (and still available certificate) was released, so I don't think there's an anachronism here. :-)

I answered the charter member question on another thread, but to summarize: we've never offered charter certificates for re-order... those were always a very limited print run, and they were a marketing benefit for the first x individuals who earned them.

We don't even track who earned them--there's nothing in your transcript that indicates charter member--so we wouldn't know how to make them appropriately available in digital form. Hopefully you guys have hung on to your paper copies.

Re: About those white borders…

Pedro Sayanda — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:01:13 -0000

Charter member is a big issue for me , and yes i think you should supply full-bleed versions as well , let the MCP choose .