Partner Perspective

Vendor-specific certifications are fast losing credence to certifications that cover multivendor IT industry skills, solution providers say.

The shift to a more solution-oriented IT environment demands a rethinking of the industry norm, which is now dominated by vendor-specific certifications, they add.

“We are now in an industry that is selling solutions instead of horizontal applications,” said Steve Harper, president of NMGI, a solution provider in Hutchinson, Kan. “Yes, I do have techs that have IBM and HP’s hardware and server certification. But that’s required to get the warranty dollars. Quite honestly, as much as each vendor would like us to sell only their products, networking is networking.”

Harper said he understands the need for some specialization, but to ask people to pass six or seven tests to become Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer-authorized, for example, is overkill.

“Let’s face it, IP routing is IP routing, whether you’re doing a Cisco or 3Com router,” he said.

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Bruce Geier, president and CEO of Technology Integration Group, San Diego, feels the same. “My choice would be to have vendor-neutral certifications,” he said. “There is a tremendous amount of overlap, and it would be a lot easier to train and retain people with vendor-neutral certifications.”

He explained that Hewlett-Packard, for example, requires that solution providers have a certain number of technicians certified in specific HP skills to qualify for rebate dollars. As a result, other solution providers seeking to upgrade their HP technical bench are constantly raiding his technicians--a problem he believes would diminish with vendor-neutral certifications.

While vendor certifications dominate the most important list in the study, vendor-neutral certifications grabbed honors on the fastest-growing list. Six of the 14 certifications cited by solution providers as growing fastest in importance, including four of the top five, were vendor-neutral. And the Certified Information Systems Security Professional had the highest return on investment of any certification, according to the study.

For his part, Harper requires that all of his techs have CompTIA’s basic A+ certification within 90 days of being hired. “That’s the minimum badge of courage to get in,” he said. All of NMGI’s techs within a year must have CompTIA’s Network+ and Server+ certifications. And he said that two of his techs have CompTIA’s Linux+ certification, cited in the Certification Study as the fastest-growing.

Harper said he favors CompTIA’s certifications not only because they are vendor-neutral but because the computer industry association keeps a database of technicians and the certifications they hold.

Still, vendor certifications continue to wield power in the industry, especially among solution providers that have chosen to focus primarily on a single vendor.

Geoffrey Lilien, CEO of Lilien Systems, an HP-only enterprise VAR in Mill Valley, Calif., noted that solution providers can attain Platinum status under HP’s PartnerOne program either through sales volumes or by the number of certified HP technicians on staff.

“As an HP-exclusive solution provider, I personally favor HP-specific certifications,” he said. “There are some very significant rebates associated with HP’s Enterprise Server and Storage Elite program.” He said it is important to maintain HP Accredited System Engineers in skills such as SAN architecture and Unix to qualify for rebates of up to 4 percent.