Promising Outlook
The future for vendor-independent certifications certainly looks bright, though there are still many hurdles to overcome, particularly for those companies or organizations offering programs for the first time. One of the battles that independent certification providers face is that of being tagged as profiteers. As the certification industry continues to grow, there is no shortage of people eager to jump on the bandwagon and get a piece of the action. Vendor-independent certification providers will only excel by providing relevant, thorough, and well-promoted certification programs that are recognized by employers and the industry.
Many people believe that, in the future, the vendor-independent market space will grow by virtue of vendor-independent and vendor-specific providers working together in certification issues. There is some evidence of this trend already. Novell, for example, counts the CompTIA Network+ certification as a valid module in its Certified Novell Engineer program. This is a particularly good example of vendor-independent certifications working in concert with a vendor-specific program. General networking is more about technologies than products and, so, is an area in which a vendor-independent certification can fulfill its role of relevance and impartiality.