John M. Wargo
BlackBerry Certification Expiration
Posted: December 1, 2009 | | Categories: BlackBerry
I was just registering for another BlackBerry Developer certification exam and came across the following notice:
Important BCP-210 Exam Retirement/Expiry Notification
Exam BCX-220 is an update to the BCP-210 exam and is currently in beta. When this exam is released in its live format (estimated late November 2009), the BCP-210 exam will be retired and no longer available for testing.
Individuals certified as a result of successfully passing the BCX-210 or BCP-210 exam will be required to re-certify by March 31, 2010 to maintain their certification status. As of March 31, 2010, all BlackBerry Certified Support Specialist certifications earned as a result of successfully passing the BCX-210 or BCP-210 exam will expire. If you have any questions about the exam retirement or expiry process, email certification@blackberry.com.
What this means then if you took the BCX-210 exam and passed (like I did), you're going to have to retake the exam in 4 months just to keep any certification you received. Normally I'd rant and complain about this, but since RIM helped with the book and allowed me to participate in the beta for the BCP-210 exam I really can't say too much. It is however not very fair to grant a certification and only a few months later invalidate it. You'd think they'd allow you to remain certified longer than that before yanking the rug out from under you. I'm curious as to what happened (I truly have no way to know) - was the 210 exam flawed in some way? Only time will tell...
If you're thinking about taking the exam, you'd best wait until the 220 exam becomes available - there's no sense taking the exam and having to pay and take it all over agin in just a few months.
Sorry for yet another shameless plug, but several people have already confirmed that the best way to prepare for this exam is to read BlackBerry Development Fundamentals.
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