Hey now, you're twisting my words around. I never said there was no demand for the CCIE. In fact if you read my posts carefully, you'll find that I mention that there is indeed quite a bit of demand for Cisco knowledge and the CCIE, in fact, more demand than for Juniper and the JNCIE.
My point is simply this. Like everything in life, it's all relative. On a relative scale, when normalized for supply, I believe the evidence shows that the relative demand for Juniper JNCIE-type skills (adjusted for the supply of those skills) is greater than the relative demand for Cisco CCIE-type skills (adjusted for the supply of those skills). But less relative demand is not the same thing as no demand. Aha - alt.certification.cisco, the "hardest networking exam" thread. Go read it again, and you'll find that once again, that it was a "RE:" thread, meaning that I was responding to somebody else's thread. Somebody wanted to know what the hardest networking exam was, and I told them. They asked for an opinion, and I gave it. See, that's my point. A lot of people here think that I just come here basically looking to start a fight. They figure - he's on a Cisco mailing list and he raising the issue of Juniper, so he's just asking for trouble. I disagree. You can go back through my history, and you'll find that I never bring up Juniper as a stand-alone subject. It's always the case that somebody else is asking a question, and I respond. If somebody asks about Juniper and the JNCIE, or relative value of certs, or some other such subject, then I will tell them what's up. I do not deliberately go around always trying to talk about Juniper unsolicited. But on the other hand, if somebody is asking the question, then that means that they must be interested in the answer. Yet, everybody seems to like jumping down my throat when I give an answer, but nobody ever seems to bother the guy who asked the original question. What's up with that? I also don't believe in the philosophy that people should only provide answers that are nice or politically correct. I don't believe in just telling people what they want to hear, if I don't believe it myself. Hey, I don't work for Cisco's marketing department. On the one hand, I'm not going to go around deliberately pointing out Cisco's and the CCIE program's shortcomings unsolicited if nobody wants to hear it. But on the other hand, if somebody asks, I will give them an honest answer, even if it's politically incorrect. I believe that if people ask honest questions, they are better served by being given honest answers, which is not always a 'nice' answer. I figure - people should be given all the facts, and then they can decide for themselves how to interpret it. Otherwise, how about this. When somebody asks a question, they can email everybody and tell them exactly what they want them to say, so that when they respond, they will get the precise answer they are looking for. But how about this. I'll make you the same deal I made to some of my other detractors. You don't want me talking about Juniper anymore, fine. How about a new policy for this mailing list, where nobody is ever allowed to ask questions about Juniper, or the worth of the cert, or does the CCIE program have any shortcomings, or questions like that? I'll happily follow a Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. But ask long as people keep asking the question, I will keep providing the answer. Anyway, enough about that. On to technical matters * The Mier study. I don't think you will find too many people who give serious credence to that study because, as you said, it was sponsored by Cisco. Has any vendor in the history of the industry ever lost in a study that they sponsored? * Other Cisco skills. OK - now you just raised an interesting subject. I believe people should guide their careers towards skills that are in high demand and low supply. One possible route is Juniper. Another possible route is all that weird Cisco stuff that nobody really knows how to use. The optical stuff (the ONS series), for example. Or the high end voice stuff. Absolutely, you are correct. But you are also (subtly) changing the subject. My entire argument has been about the CCIE vs. the JNCIE, and my implication was that the CCIE market seems to be more saturated than the JNCIE market. Now, on the one hand, Cisco has all these other technologies that are indeed highly marketable skills. But, on the othe hand, they have nothing to do with the CCIE. Consider - how many CCIE's know how to use the ONS15454 (which, by the way, Cisco sells $1billion annually)? I know I don't, and none of the guys I know do. The only guy I know that can do it has no Cisco certs whatsoever. Same thing with the high-end voice stuff - most CCIE's don't really know that stuff such that they could call themselves experts at it (I know some intermediate voice stuff - but the advanced H323 gatekeeper/gateway stuff or the advanced SIP stuff, or SS7 integration? No way). That's not part of the normal CCIE curricula. So if people here want to conclude that perhaps they should focus less on the rather saturated R/S type skills and get into some of those not-so-saturated 'alternative' Cisco technologies, then that is an equally valid conclusion to draw. Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=24458&t=24336 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
