News
MCAD Numbers Adding Up
Microsoft issues its first hundred certifications for new developer certification.
According to an internal company report compiled on Aug. 13, Microsoft
has issued its first hundred certifications for the new Microsoft Certified
Application Developer title. Of the 102 early achievers, it appears all
of them have obtained the certification after passing one of the beta
exams still in development, which have yet to be released publicly. So
far, only the 70-306: Developing and Implementing Windows-based Applications
with Visual Basic .NET/Visual Studio .NET and 70-316: Developing and Implementing
Windows-based Applications with Visual C#/Visual Studio .NET exams are
available.
Jason Mauss, owner and CTO of Knowledge Relay LLC, a Los Alamitos, Calif.-based
custom software development and .NET training firm, took the 70-320 Web
Services/Visual C# beta and received his results Aug. 9, but hasn't received
a formal acknowledgement of that achievement. Microsoft says it's still
contemplating how to recognize early achievers.
Like the MCSD, a title which has had only 35,897 certifications issued
as of July 12, the MCAD is likely to have minimal interest from the development
community. "As a trainer, I'm seeing people more interested in the
technology than the certification," says Mauss. But Mauss sees the
lower barrier to achievement a point in the MCAD title's favor. "The MCAD
isn't as high level [as the MCSD], since you don't need to pass the 70-300
[Analyzing Requirements and Defining .NET Solution Architectures] exam,"
he explains. The 70-300 exam is expected to be released in February 2003,
according to the Microsoft MCP Web site.
The monthly list of certifications issued for this title and the rest of Microsoft's
titles will be published in the Oct. 2002 issue of MCP Magazine,
and simultaneously will appear on the MCPmag.com home page on Sept. 10.
About the Author
Michael Domingo has held several positions at 1105 Media, and is currently the editor in chief of Visual Studio Magazine.