Readify prides itself on the quality of its training courses, allowing participants not only to gain a rapid education in the subject matter technology but also giving them a fantastic opportunity to skill up in preparation for Microsoft Certification Examinations.
Readify's Professional .NET course covers subject material necessary for a number of Microsoft exams:
- MCTS 70-536 Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 - Application Development Foundation - around 50% of the content for this required MCPD exam is covered by Pro .NET.
- MCTS 70–528 Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 - Web-Based Client Development - coverage of approximately 30%.
- MCTS 70-526 Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 – Windows-Based Client Development - coverage of approximately 30%.
- MCTS 70–529 Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 – Distributed Application Development - coverage of approximately 30%.
Course comparison: Readify vs Microsoft
Microsoft does not have any official courses that map to 70-536 at all, meaning that people who want to achieve their MCPD certification will need to find third party training.
There are existing Microsoft courses for the other three exams listed above, and these will cover approximately 60% of the material required to pass the exam, but will also take around 4 weeks to complete, comparing to our 5 day course.
It is important to note that the existing official courses are actually hands-on lab style and therefore have less instructor-based content. This requires the instructors to have in-depth knowledge of the subject to be able to answer questions and structure the course effectively.
Recommendation
Customers and partners should consider taking Readify's course and access e-learning or Microsoft Press for where they have a skills gap. Alternatively, we could conduct some of the Official courses to supplement Professional .NET.
The MCTS Exam 70-431, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - Implementation and Maintenance, is one of the more wide-ranging exams available in the official Microsoft certification process and covers a large variety of areas.
Readify's Professional SQL 2005 Upgrade course covers a large amount of the required area but as it is an Upgrade course does have assumed knowledge incorporated into it. There is no known course available that maps to 100% of this exam's requisites.
Course comparison: Readify vs Microsoft
Microsoft recommends that classroom training for the 70-431 exam be of around 10 days in duration. The existing Microsoft courses available only map to around 50% of the actual exam criteria. Readify's course has a 5 day duration.
Recommendation
Given that Readify's course is half the duration of the Official Microsoft course equivalents, coupled with it being the most comprehensive offering to help participants pass 70-431, customers and partners seeking to complete this exam are encouraged to sign up for Pro SQL 2005 Upgrade.
For learning about SharePoint development, Professional MOSS 2007 Solutions is the way to go. This course is an approximately 60% fit to MCTS 70-542 Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 - Application Development for which there is no existing official curriculum available. In addition, the course covers around 20% of MCTS 70-630 SharePoint Server 2007 - Configuring.
Course comparison: Readify vs Microsoft
Since there is no official Microsoft training available for 70-542, Readify's course stands alone in helping people gain the knowledge required to sit this exam. In the case of 70-630 there is an official course (5061) that partially maps to exam requirements but it should be noted that this is more an administrator-style course as opposed to development.
Recommendation
If customers need to gain an understanding of SharePoint development the only real option is to take Readify's Professional MOSS 2007 Solutions course.
If the requirement is to skill up for SharePoint administration, it is recommended that they attend either the 5061 course mentioned above which Readify can present, or e-Learning 5404.