[BSDCert] Battle of Certification

[chris]

Hi

I am a consumer of certification. That is I attend my local community 
college for classes in MCSA and CCNA. If however there was a BSD academy 
style certification path at the college I would prefer to take it. Given 
Evans comments regarding the cost of developing a certification program. 
I think that a certification path that takes advantage of existing 
educational infrastructure has much to benefit in the following ways:

   1. Colleges already proctor exams in Further and Higher education.
   2. The quality of  Cisco and Microsoft academy study materials leaves
      much to be desired and the labs always require double checking and
      are frequently incorrect.

I believe that a professionally packaged training course that is 
supported by well written labs would be an easy sell for a college to a 
consumer of certification. Ultimately the battle of certification will 
not be won not by the niceties of high ideals about what certification 
bodies stand for but whose learning resources and materials are the best.

Despite all the money Cisco and Microsoft pump into their academies 
there will always be room for an Open Source option because what it 
takes is decent study materials with labs that work.

Chris