No upside to Microsoft's decision to kill Dynamics GP exams
I'll tell you up front that I'm not a fan of Microsoft's recent decision to kill the exam requirements for much of its Dynamics line of products. The announcement came as a surprise because we'd been hearing from inside Microsoft that they were going to move in the other direction. We had been told that Microsoft would require a higher level of certification from resellers by year-end. I'd even done some work on a related project to help consultants get certified. Then one day, poof, certification is gone.
As I thought about this and read through Microsoft's announcement, three key items stood out:
- Certification does indicate a level of knowledge. Like most certifications, Dynamics GP certification is not the Holy Grail. Being certified doesn't guarantee anything except that someone can pass the test. It does, however, show that someone is willing to put in the effort to learn the material for the exam. It also shows that the individual has at least a passing reference to features in the latest release. If someone's last certification exam was three versions ago, their skill set may be hopelessly out of date.
- Microsoft's
argument about a cloud shift doesn't hold water. Microsoft has pushed out
the argument that they want partners to focus on learning related technologies
like Azure and Office 365. This is pure smokescreen. A
year and a half ago I wrote that if we see a significant movement to the cloud
(as in Azure and Office 365) we need FEWER infrastructure specialists and MORE
functional people. If GP is housed in an Azure data center, every partner
doesn't need a server expert. They need ...
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