MCM Exchange 2007

[Triton.Deep]

This has caught my eye from the first day that I read about it. I know it seems expensive, but I honestly believe it could be well worth the money involved as long as the mountain of knowledge required to attain it is legit. I'm seriously considering trying to get it.

However; I do have one stumbling block. I've looked and looked, I know the MCM is platform specific, I know it costs 20 grand, but what I don't know is what are the upgrade requirements for going from Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010/12/etc?

Has anyone seen or heard anything that is specific to the renewal requirments? I'm happy to go for this, for me the 20,000 up front is not insurmoutable, I do think it has value that can recoup the 20,000 easily if your willing to do the sort of work the MCM is designed to support....but..Microsoft revs it's products so fast. I started off on Exchange 5.5, then 2000, 2003, and now 2007...well..it's year 2009 now already.

I guess what I'm concerned about is having to drop 20,000 or ask my company to drop 20,000 everytime Microsoft comes out with a new version of Exchange. Anybody know anything about that? Before I try something like that or ask my company to, I need to know what I'm really getting myself into long term.

I did a fair amount of reading on this, trying to find the answer. *chuckles* If you google search this and hit the answer on page 1, please tell me what you searched for exactly so I'll buy a clue next time and figure it out. I couldn't find it anywhere.

J.

[BosonMichael]

I disagree; I don't think the MCM is worth anywhere near the cost of the certification... not in time, and not in money. By the time you have that much knowledge, you've likely got WAY more than enough documented, verifiable experience... and very little competition. Thus, at that level, you don't need a certification to prove your knowledge and experience.

But let's say you wanted the certification anyway. Can you *honestly* say that you'd EVER be able to recoup the $20,000 spent on the certification (not to mention the time invested)?

[Triton.Deep]

Well, try to keep in mind that the entire point of this thread is to see about getting some very specific answers so that I can try to discern if it's worth it to me.

But lets assume Microsoft provides a way for an MCM on Exchange 2007 to maintain that certification on the next revision of Exchange without the hefty 20,000 price tag. Something similar to a CCIE re-up. Now..assuming that is true:

Easily.

With the MCM, I could easily recoup the loss of 20,000. Within a year I do believe, two tops. I say this based on the proven return on educational investments that I've received for my entire career and some of those investments have been more than 20,000 (34G's for my BS, FTW)

To me, it's a no-brainer. Yes, you can absolutely recoup the loss, I only add one single clarification to that statement, and I said it in my original post as well:

Originally Posted by Triton.Deep

I do think it has value that can recoup the 20,000 easily if your willing to do the sort of work the MCM is designed to support

If your desire is to do system/network administration at an in-house IT job for the rest of your career, then stay away from the MCM. You don't need it and nobody really cares if you have it. However; I've been in enough consulting circles to know that in the right circumstances, this sort of thing has the potential to turn large profitable deals your direction.

Right now..it is easy to target this certification because it is still basically in it's infancy and nobody knows how it's going to turn out for sure. So, it could be a big waste no matter how you slice it.

I never said there's no risk. But most definitely there is nice potential for reward.

I hope so anyways.

J.

\\is not an MCM advocate, I am looking at it though and thinking about it

[BosonMichael]

Originally Posted by Triton.Deep

With the MCM, I could easily recoup the loss of 20,000. Within a year I do believe, two tops. I say this based on the proven return on educational investments that I've received for my entire career and some of those investments have been more than 20,000 (34G's for my BS, FTW)

But those were for certifications and education for MUCH lower-level certifications than the MCM. My point is, by the time you can achieve the MCM, you don't need the MCM to make that kind of money. Thus, although you could probably afford to pay back the 20K, you don't need to get the MCM to have that extra 20K.

Find companies who are willing to pay you extra JUST because you have the MCM, and I will adjust my advice to you. I don't see ANY companies asking for it other than Microsoft themselves... and clients don't know it exists.

[Per Farny]

Hi All,
Great question. It gave me the push needed to make an entry on our blog about the topic. Check it out here and let me know if you have any other questions.

As for 'is it worth it' / 'is it in demand'...everyone will make their own decision. We've seen people realize ROI within a day of returning home, but I'm also aware that like anything new, it will take some time to get traction in the marketplace. Getting great people through the program is the first step, and I'm confident this will be an awesome brand, and highly desired, moving forward.

[Per Farny]

One more thing re: 'needing the MCM'.

I see the primary target market being those partners (system integrators) that don't have a name that gets them to the table, or gets them the gig. For example, if you're HP, you can likely go to the customer and say, "Hi, I'm with HP", and they'll let you in. If you're with Company X, that might not be the case. Here, the idea is that if you say, "I'm with Company X, and we have a Certified Master on staff", you do get that seat at the table. In the one day ROI example above, the person got the gig, over Microsoft Consulting Services, just because of this reason. Anyway, just wanted to provide that so you know where we're coming from.

[Triton.Deep]

Just to re-iterate, I'm not advocating them, but I am exploring the idea. For me, Exchange 2010(Exchange 14) is right around the corner, so it becomes incredibly important what path Microsoft opts to take in regards to how it handles platform transitions for this particular certification.

In regards to companies looking for it, like I said..it's a very specific kind of work, it's also a very young certification that is just starting to penetrate the market. Only with time will we truly know how much value it has, however; I did go to Monster and type in "Microsoft Certified Master Exchange 2007" and..well..there you go. That’s the type of work I'm talking about.

1) 3/27/2009 Microsoft Exchange/OCS Architect

2) 3/23/2009 Consultant-Microsoft Exchange/AD Architect

Not Microsoft asking for them either, and heck..that took 30 seconds to find. There are 62 MCM's for E'2007 worldwide. I bet a bunch of them work for Microsoft. It's not a crowded job market, there are never going to be 1982349182374 people nor 298392384 jobs for this sort of thing.

But for the people willing to do it, 20,000 will be a small investment with potential for huge returns in the long term. Again, if it's only good for the year or two that companies adopt it before MS rolls out another product, well..I would really struggle with that.

At any rate, I don’t' want to be in the position of defending something like this, if Microsoft were to say that to re-up for Exchange 2010 MCM that I had to drop another 20,000 and month of my life, then that’s not to good
Hopefully..someone with knowledge will chime in and share a little bit about that part.

J.

[Per Farny]

Originally Posted by Triton.Deep

Just to re-iterate, I'm not advocating them, but I am exploring the idea. For me, Exchange 2010(Exchange 14) is right around the corner, so it becomes incredibly important what path Microsoft opts to take in regards to how it handles platform transitions for this particular certification.

In regards to companies looking for it, like I said..it's a very specific kind of work, it's also a very young certification that is just starting to penetrate the market. Only with time will we truly know how much value it has, however; I did go to Monster and type in "Microsoft Certified Master Exchange 2007" and..well..there you go. That’s the type of work I'm talking about.

1) 3/27/2009 Microsoft Exchange/OCS Architect

2) 3/23/2009 Consultant-Microsoft Exchange/AD Architect

Not Microsoft asking for them either, and heck..that took 30 seconds to find. There are 62 MCM's for E'2007 worldwide. I bet a bunch of them work for Microsoft. It's not a crowded job market, there are never going to be 1982349182374 people nor 298392384 jobs for this sort of thing.

But for the people willing to do it, 20,000 will be a small investment with potential for huge returns in the long term. Again, if it's only good for the year or two that companies adopt it before MS rolls out another product, well..I would really struggle with that.

At any rate, I don’t' want to be in the position of defending something like this, if Microsoft were to say that to re-up for Exchange 2010 MCM that I had to drop another 20,000 and month of my life, then that’s not to good
Hopefully..someone with knowledge will chime in and share a little bit about that part.

J.

Hi again - not sure if you saw my two entries above or not. I'm 'someone from Microsoft', and happen to be the one who's in charge of all of the Master and Architect programs. Let me know if you have any other questions!

Thanks,
Per

[Triton.Deep]

Originally Posted by Per Farny

Hi again - not sure if you saw my two entries above or not. I'm 'someone from Microsoft', and happen to be the one who's in charge of all of the Master and Architect programs. Let me know if you have any other questions!

Thanks,
Per

Thank you very much for the reply above. I very much appreciate you taking the time to answer that, and after reading the blog entry itself I think the approach that is forming is well thought out and was what I was hoping for.

Excellent.

J.

PS: I was typing my previous post while you were doing your first two on this thread, so completly missed them.

[Per Farny]

Originally Posted by Triton.Deep

PS: I was typing my previous post while you were doing your first two on this thread, so completly missed them.

I thought that might've been the case ;-)

Let me know if you have any other questions on that or other MCM/MCA topics. You can do it here or feel free to send me a mail at perfarny at you-know-where.com. That offer is open to everyone, btw!