Microsoft"s decision to no longer offer any IT workers a way to obtain masters-level certification from the company has been postponed for a few more months. Microsoft originally said that the masters exams would end on Oct. 1, but now the Register reports that Microsoft will extend that deadline for an additional 90 days, which would put the end to the exams in late December.
The Register says that Microsoft provided this new update in a conference call to many IT workers who are affected by the company"s decision. The call also revealed that people who are currently taking masters certification courses but who won"t be able to take the final exams will be given refunds. Finally, the actual course materials will still be available until 2016.
The conference call featured Tim Sneath, senior director of Microsoft Learning, who said that the company was not seeing enough people obtain the masters-level of certification. He is quoted as saying:
When we look at products like Windows, Exchange and SharePoint, those are billion dollar businesses. We have less than 200 certified individuals for each product. 200 does not give us the volume to be successful deploying those products to the enterprise.
Microsoft is working on a possible replacement for the masters level, but Sneath said it was too early in that process to reveal when it will launch and what the courses will be like.
Source: The Register | Image via Microsoft