Internetwork Expert CCIE 2.0

As you all know Internetwork Expert had a major webcast scheduled for today and I was not able to join because the participation was huge (500 folks!). Well I just watched the recorded session and here is the summary in my words.

Reasons for Internetwork Expert NOT becoming a Cisco Learning Partner:

• IE won't be able to sell outside North America. What is the problem? Well 50% of their business is outside of North America so yeah I can see an issue with that.
• IE won't be able to honor the investment protection program
• No allowance for emerging markets. I just found out that IE offers 50% discount to customers from emerging markets. That's a nice gesture Brian!
• No Scholarship program
• No online classes since they would be bound to North America.

New Location:

• New IE location is opening in New Delhi, India. With this IE will be able to offer 24-7 live customer service and support. Great move!

Existing Customers:

• Existing customers that have purchased End-to-End products or were registered in a bootcamp ARE COVERED.
• New Class-on-Demand series coming out early next week
• Brian Dennis mentioned this over and over again that his focus is customers and existing customers will only GAIN and have nothing to LOSE from this new offering.

Coming in 2009:

• CCNA, CCNP, CCDA, CCDP Programs
• Class on Demand offerings
• Hands-on Lab Workbooks

CCIE 2.0 is the Future:

• Constantly evolving structured content
• Dynamic adaptive tests
• Ongoing interaction with students
• Leveraging the community
• Advanced customer support program via Customer Satisfaction Managers.

Brian McGahan has a blog post up on IE Blog with the link to the recording.

I think this was a very informative session and IE has my respect. It appears that they are competing head on with Cisco 360 for the training and I wish them goodluck. Ok time to get back to my R&S prep