Its all well and good having courses and assessments that are subsidised, but it still costs the business time in lost productivity and wages to actually do these courses. Will MS reduce the cost of the action pack? I doubt it, so then why not allow us registered partners the privilege to advertise ourselves as Partners in the same way the higher partner programs can.

Im a one man IT business. I don't have the funds or time to go on all of the courses to do the exams, to get all the assessments to get to the next level. Indeed, in Devon these count for nothing.

Do I see the action pack worth it in the future? No. It may contain £20k worth of software for £200 per year subscription, but what actually comes in the pack no longer justifys the cost. Lets see, Vista, Office 2007 and Server 2008 Beta comes to mind in the last 12 months. Vista and Office oem would maybe cost £250, but they are mine to keep. I work from a laptop so 10 licenses are of no use to me. If I spend £600 over 3 years, (the typical time scale of releases), I can still buy the latest OS, Office or SBS and still keep up to date without having to do exams.

Perhaps MS needs to look at who the target Action Pack users are. I never read the marketing stuff because it illrelevent as im a support engineer not marketing. None of my clients are on Vista or O2k7 because I won't inflict such torture, and all uses SBS 2003 with no real intention to change - mainly because of the CAL costs of changing to the latest version.

I think the action pack needs to change. Perhaps a subset of action packs with just OS, Apps, & Service Packs, specifically for a type of business, eg, home support, small business support, or full support which contains everything the AP contains now - but needs to now include Vista home, or Home Server versions. MS must realise that some action pack subscribers deal with consumers, not just businesses.

So will I qualify in the future? Am I prepared to take the exam? That really depends if MS makes it more attractive and something I can 'sell', which as a registered partner I unable to do.

I appreciate the sense of knowing an operating system inside and out. I have been with technology longer than most, to see the ways learning and certification is sold to the 'students': It is for your own good and the good of the product, but I also see how it is revenue center for the software manufacturer. It is very difficult to just MAKE a market. I cannot just MAKE a sharepoint solution without serious overhead and a loss on the other side of my business for the core revenue instruments.

I have to give credit to Terry - what makes more sense: learning another OS or going through regular MS training to enable Action Pack renewals? As a small IT house, I can use the Action Pack subscription server support calls in very tough situations -  this is more than worth it for me for the subscription. But to have to learn new products (exactly HOW many revisions of file servers do we need to learn?) that I will almost never implement like Sharepoint, SQL Server Upgrades, etc. It becomes a waste of time to be forced into learning.

Maybe only Small Business owners can speak to this, since the only lucrative way to run this business is to spend your time in revenue generating activities, keep up with general trends and reviews. Contrary to common ideas, IT Consultants make more money with continued service on existing and sometimes older technologies than in upselling new things. Business owners (our clients) are smart enough to realize when you are wasting their money. These upselling tactics can have the opposite effect and  wreck the consultancy reputation. Training on things that will not matter to your business is a waste of time for small businesses consultants. The next time I renew, I hope that the training and learning center understands this dilemma.