From: Scott Vermillion (scott_ccie_list.com@it-ag.com)
Date: Sat Sep 08 2007 - 15:44:53 ART
If you look closely, you'll see that Cisco is making a concerted effort to
increase profitability now, damn the ultimate cost later. For example, I
live in a city of ~500k people, and we're fairly tech-heavy, so we have a
pretty large Cisco Users Group that meets one per month. In days past, this
was a fairly fancy ordeal at a nice hotel next to Cisco's main office in
town, catered with really good food and drinks. Lately, I've noticed the
invitations are being sent for meetings being held at various restaurants,
with an explicit notification that you will be expected to pay your own way.
They not only aren't catering, they aren't even covering the hotel banquet
hall at the hotel anymore. "Good luck with those meetings that promote our
company and its products, sure hope you generate some sales out of your own
pockets."
Do I care that there is no free food? Of course not. The speakers and my
own schedule are how I decide whether or not to go to these. But I think
when you combine this with the single test vendor, the reduction of services
by the certification "support team," the unannounced and very steep jacking
up of prices, etc, you will see that this is an overarching strategy on the
part of Cisco; it's not isolated to just certifications. They even recently
discontinued their employee purchase program, which allowed employees to buy
at basically cost. Now employees must buy through channels just like
everybody else.
Deep-seated greed has taken hold somewhere at the very top of Cisco's
leadership and we are all witnessing and experiencing the result, and no
doubt more to follow, as this appears to be a trend that they intend to
sustain.
-----Original Message-----
From: nobody@groupstudy.com [mailto:nobody@groupstudy.com] On Behalf Of
Farrukh Haroon
Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2007 12:15 PM
To: Narbik Kocharians
Cc: Darby Weaver; Cisco certification
Subject: Re: OT: Cisco Raises Prices - Juniper for Free... Hmmm.... Who's
gonna win?
I personally think this is the only way Cisco could come up with to
'limit' those flying numbers :)
but I don't think this would work out for them.
On 9/8/07, Narbik Kocharians <narbikk@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think the motivation is the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$. The discount that some firms
> get having certified pros on staff. The salary that you enjoy when you get
> your cert. But i know what you are saying.
>
> On 9/8/07, Darby Weaver <darbyweaver@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Exactly what is the "increased" value to test takers?
> >
> > Somebody help me here...
> >
> > Another $150.00 per attempt...
> >
> > Pretty STEEP.
> >
> > And where's the 6 months notice.
> >
> > It's like I went to sleep last night, checked my mail
> > and on September 8th I found out that the price
> > increase was on Spet 7, 2007...
> >
> >
> > Pretty shoddy....
> >
> > Did this come up at Networkers in July at least...?
> >
> > Funny - some exams went up like 5% - from $300.00 to
> > $315.00
> >
> > Others went up from 25% - from $125.00 to $150.00 like
> > 640-801
> >
> > And the lab jumped like 12% or so by $150.00
> >
> >
> > Any one else steamed?
> >
> >
> > Explain the added value? Why are not all exams going
> > up...
> >
> > Well, I guess one can always study Cisco, but not take
> > the exams at all.
> >
> > I mean how impressive one might appear to be if one
> > knows the IOS pretty decently and does NOT even hold a
> > CCIE, CCNP, or CCNA...
> >
> > Lots of jobs do not necessarily require certification
> > at all.
> >
> > Most of my previous jobs have not required
> > certification - so I wonder where's the added value?
> >
> > What motivates a seasoned veteran to hang on... paper
> > holds anything?
> >
> > Did they add more questions?
> >
> > ====================================
> >
> > _______________________________________________________________________
> > Subscription information may be found at:
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> >
>
>
>
> --
> Narbik Kocharians
> CCIE# 12410 (R&S, SP, Security)
> CCSI# 30832
> www.Net-WorkBooks.com
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> Subscription information may be found at:
> http://www.groupstudy.com/list/CCIELab.html
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