Richard Deal wrote: > > To all, > > I have no specifics to add about this, except to make a point > about this > vlab thing--I know of MANY training parters that bought into > this from Cisco > and got slammed because of the complete lack of demand on > virtual training. > I think Cisco saw this vision of distance learning taking over > the training > business and pushed a lot of their training partners to get > into this game. > What Cisco didn't take the time to look at is that universities > and colleges > have been looking at this for years. Now if these long-lived > institutions > couldn't pull it off (not because of technology, but because of > user's > perceptions), did Cisco think they could? Most people that are > going to pay > $2,000 for training want the equipment in front of them to > touch and feel it Hi Richard,
I agree with what you are saying, but If I may add a little to the discussion, I think some additional factor here is that mentor tech did not compensate for the current higher supply and lower demand in the field. If we compare a few years ago (Let's just say 1.5 years ago), the money from IT was being spent like crazy and the demand was high for the Cisco techs and cisco certs were being pushed by consulting groups. (I am hoping it still is or will be) :-) At this time from the supply side - 1 - few places that were selling remote labs or training equipment, so lower amount of access to proper training equipment. 2 - shortage of ccie and ccnp training materials available on a wide scale, or at least, lot less than what it is today. And during this period, companies were paying for everything... But today, basically a big chunk of corporate budget is frozen, thus people are forced to spend their own money for lot of this training. And 4,500+ dollars for a week's worth of training is a lot to come up with out of personal funds.. I am not saying it is not worth it, but just in today's economy where training might have to be paid for by your own personal fund, 4500 dollars is a lot. Also, now for VLabs, again, few years back, fewer places offered online remote racks. But today, more places are popping up and offering the usage of the full rack from 8 - 24 hours at a lot lower cost then just a year ago. In addition, routers and switches are being bought and resold over ebay just for home labs so people can study for their ccna/da/ie. Lot more of this is happening today then a few years ago. So the need for someone to get vlabs and pay 70-110 dollars for a specific module of lab is a lot less. Granted you have to supply your own lab scenarios but over time, I think it is more economical to either buy your equipment and resell it over ebay or rent a remote rack at places like ipexpert, ccbootcamp and such. Honestly, you cannot just do the lab once, you have to come back and do it a few more times but now, are you going to have to pay 70 dollars again to do something that you did a few weeks ago?? And if this was the trend, maybe mentor tech should have seen it coming and lower some of the prices and readvertise their new pricing structure and compete with other firms offering lower cost training and access to the online racks. Paul Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=23465&t=23274 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
