...I reckon it's still worth getting the A+ myers book if you are entry level even if now you are thinking about skipping the exam. Pretty glad now I only bought the N+ book, studied it but then didn't bother with the exam.

Maybe there will be a shift towards the MCDST??

I haven't looked at the A+ but am going to (hopefully) take the MCDST within the next few months. After that am not sure but can see from another thread that the suggestions are to do the 682 upgrade...

I think there will be a big shift to vendor specific entry certs like the MCDST now that this has happend and only the likes of Microsoft will benefit at CompTIA's expense.

Well. That is a good point of view, but i passed A+ last year, and i am half way through N+. Even Comptia is not that recognized in the UK as in the US, but still i found job adds where they mention it as advantage,
I can not show up any experience for the last 5 years,( instead i have 5 years lorry driving). So somehow i have to sell my self, and i hope i can do it with the A+N+. I mean i will keep carry on with the N+, (i am still working full time, so i can afford it), and probably when i got it i going to start MCDST.
And one more thing what make sense for me, ( as it was mentioned before) i learned and learning a lot from the Meyers books, i was interested about pc-s all the time in my life, but the knowledge i picked up from this books necessary (i think) for the start.(I praise Master Meyers here, not the Comptia)
But everybody has to find his/her own way.
So good luck)

I wonder how long MCDST has got?

XP got a stay of execution because everyone hated Vista.
As soon as Win 7 is in place they'll drop XP as soon as they can.

I think it'll be around for a couple of years to come - I think 7 needs to mature enough before they start taking over.

I'm hoping for a couple of years as I'd like to at least get my MCSA before then!!!

Seeing as MS have extended support for XP until 2014 I'd say thats probably at least how long the MCDST has got left myself, MS aren't likely to retire the cert while still providing support for the product. Especially not for an OS as widespread and heavily entrenched as XP is.

In other news, we might actually end up with our first Win 7 PC here because of unavailability of XP licenses (we build all our systems on site).

I somewhat surprised that nobody is challenging the legality of this.

As the saying goes: a deal is a deal. CompTIA took my money, and told me I had a lifetime certification. Now, after the fact, CompTIA wants to change the terms? How is that fair, or even legal?

It's as if I bought a car, and the car dealer later decides I have to pay an extra $100 a month.

It seems to me that comptia has reneged on it's a promise, and breeched a valid contract.

Whether or not expiring certifications are good or bad, for cert holders is beside the point. Previous cert holders had an agreement with CompTIA, and it is not fair, and should not be legal, for CompTIA to arbitrarily break that agreements.

If CompTIA wants to change the agreement with subsequent exam takers, is a different matter. Comptia has no right to renege on agreements that they have already made.

See here :-

http://www.comptia.org/certifications/policies/agreement.aspx

Companies like this employ lawyers to ensure they are ahead of the little guy.

Of course none of us know what the exact agreement we entered into was, it would have been in small print on a screen in a testing centre 1-8 years ago where cameras were forbidden.

I agree with your sentiment though, if I paid £5000 for a bottle of milk to be delivered every day for the rest of my life, and then they only chose to deliver for 3 years I'd say they owed me a pro rata refund of approximately 30-40 years of milk !

The reality is the only thing that we have protecting us from these moves is goodwill on the part of the cert vendor and the threat of mass protests.

Currently CompTia are agressively filtering comments on their site in order to perform damage limitation and try and make it appear all is normal.

If this sort of attitude and behavior becomes acceptable then I will find it very hard to reccomend any certifications at all, in fact I already prefer academic qualifications for those that can manage it.

Why don't you do it?

In all seriousness though, I understand people's reactions to this.

However, any body that certificates or validates anything has people under their thumb.

Think a driving license lasts for life?
It does until the safety gestapo and the DVLA decide that people should re-test every five years.

MOT good for a year?
Yup, until someone says otherwise.

The only grey area - which this may or may not fall into - is where you pay for something for a certain amount of time, such as car tax or an annual membership which then gets cut short.

The question then is, was a primary reason you chose to 'purchase' A+ the fact that it would be for life?
Generally, the answer would be 'no'.
You purchased it because it's the A+, a well recognised entry level IT cert which is what you needed at the time.

I suspect that for most people, three years after A+ they'll have a slightly more impressive trophy on their mantlepiece and their A+ will become about as relevant as their GCSEs.

What if like ken it takes you a while to get into IT ? What if like myself you were already experienced and qualified and simply wanted lifetime certs to show you were an all rounder ?

CompTia did not market them as 'certs to get you into IT in 3 years', they marketed them as 'for life', pure and simple.

They should not have sold the certificates under this model if they had intentions of retrospectively changing them which their smallprint indicates.

I'm not a lawyer, but contract law cannot be used to supplant common law so maybe there is a case, not sure about US law.

CompTia's policies have changed over the years, you can see this on wayback machine.

In 1996 they were described as expiring, however most of us will not have tested under these conditions.

Heres one thing from 2001 :-

Not saying I support the decision, just trying to rationalise it.

Legally I would guess that they're covered by their small print that was posted above.

I would suspect that if anything overturns this it will be the weight of public opinion and negative feedback rather than a legal dispute. Could be wrong though.

The issue for them is, will they see less people certifying with CompTIA because of this?

Some people choose to take certs which they know require re-certification but they take them anyway because they want or need that particular cert.

Changing the rules half way through is lousy though, and at the very least I'd have thought that existing cert holders should have been exempt to avoid this kind of complaint. Surely that wouldn't have been difficult or have affected their ISO compliance.

Agreed. I've put a couple of comments on, and they haven't appeared. Mind you, a few are starting to get through that show the strength of feeling against the move.

By the way, did you see the company reps on the CompTIA board of directors? They must have a mixed view of how it will impact their certification take up (for the better?), where they have a cert route.

That's an interesting point.
I've only really considered it from an individual's point of view.

But what about companies who hire A+ certified staff and advertise that fact.
Are they going to pay to keep their staff's certs up to date, or will it become a condition of their employment that they do it themselves?

What if you've got a lot of them?

They have now published their recert or CEU plans.

Recerting the Network+ or Security+ recerts the A+, the Security plus also recerts the Network+.

I would suggest there is limited overlap between these certs, so it would appear this is just their attempt to make money while making at least one concession to appease certified members.

If you hold Network+ or Security+ you will have to pay $49 per year for the CEU, it does not list UK prices, who knows what they will be.

Otherwise you must resit the exams every three years which run at around £200 each in the UK.

Nobody knows exact details on the CEU, you need 50 points every 3 years, publishing a book will only earn 20 CEU's !!!

http://www.comptia.org/certifications/listed/renewal/faq.aspx

Its quite possible for many this will mean paying for expensive CompTia approved courses and conferences, so the end cost could be well above the £200 to re-sit. They are the judge and jury, (sound familiar ?) so could decide not to count thousands of pounds worth of professional development courses.

In my experience in the UK very few employers pay any of, let alone the full cert cost, since CompTia is not well known it's even less likely they will pay for CompTia.

BosonMicheal and BosonJosh make the point of why not publicize the A+ to employers. Why should I help market their product when they show such contempt for their certified members ?

It does appear this is a tax on IT for entry level IT professionals and the US DoD who probably will pay for their permanent staff.

I would advise those in the UK to evaluate their options and maybe consider academic quals like NVQ, OCR iPro, BTEC, OU Certificate, HNC/HND, Foundation Degree's, etc.

Sorry Jonny, I meant it from the perspective of Cisco rep on the Board of Directors, as an example. Yes, there are other vendors there too.

I wonder if they feel that the 3 year refresh will 'engineer' more people moving to the likes of the CCENT as opposed to possibly being happy to stay with the likes of the Network+ for a while.

But you raise a valid point.

I agree with dmarsh on his point on advising NVQs , foundation degrees etc.

I for one will not renew my certs with compTIA and may only advise A+ and N+ as starting certs if a candidate doesn't have anything qualifications wise behind them who wish to get into IT.

If someone however has NVQs or foundation degrees or HND I will advise them to start on the MCDST as their first cert.

I do think however think that compTIA will have to do a U-turn on this as they will see that people are not certifying with them anymore.

So... basically, no change from before, right?

I'm sure there are companies who don't pay for certification exams, but I have yet to work for a company who didn't pay for them, and I've worked for nine employers while in IT.

That said, they won't pay for expensive training, though they will buy books. And the studying is usually done after hours unless there's some downtime (hah!).