IFIP is one of those international bodies that has never in its life done anything useful, except provide international conferences that bodies like the ACS love going to.

This certification scheme won't go far because it's useless. The most important IT nation in the world, America, has nothing to do with it, as you can see here.

The certification won't really mean anything, because it will be available to almost anyone. The article above reports that chartered accountants will be able to gain it "if they have sufficient IT knowledge and experience." Say, if they know Excel and know how to set up a wireless network.

It's hard to see anyone attaching any importance to a certification like this.

Microsoft's involvement doesn't count for much, because they back anything that make enterprise developers cheaper and thus expands the market for their own software.

This is similar to qualifications such as CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) and CISA (Certified Information Systems Auditor). International qualifications you *must* have in order to remain marketable and competitive.

Now there are other *international recognised* qualifications like LIFE which you *also must* to remain in the market. And on and on it goes.

I remember when I sat CISA in 1992 and there was one question I have never forgotten: What is a brownout?.

I asked my other colleagues who sat the exam and through a process of elimination the answer was 'Not quite a blackout'

If an exam asks silly questions like that, do you think that it undermines the quality and reputation of the qualification? I think so.

From experience anything the United Nations has a hand in is not motivated by a sense of goodwill. I have worked in 3rd world countries. Once tried to get in on some Gov Contracts that was partially funded by UNDP but wholly controlled by them. Basically, when I pushed hard to get involved in the tender process, I was threatened and told to back off. When you work in a 3rd world country, you take threats seriously. The UNDP already had pre-selected the suppliers for the project.

I was later told that the UNDP cook these projects up with Suppliers and roll them out. The projects are managed by the UNDP (supplier) and always go into extra time and the resulting costs are for the governments account. Some poorer countries end up settling their account by selling lucrative logging contracts, or other similar 'rape & pillage' setups. The French are masters at this game.

Combine the UN with Microsoft and you have got to wonder what are they getting out of it! Microsoft spend a lot of time trying to hijack or proprietise standards. The ACS should definitely think carefully about this - don't be so naive. Understand that the UN is an organisation to be treated with suspicion and extreme caution. It is filled with many corrupt individuals who basically who answer to no-one. You need to check your jewelry and count your fingers after you shake hands with them!

lxrocks, you presume the ACS cares. The agenda of the ACS is closely aligned to this sort of IFIP rubbish.

It's about inventing little certifications so that accountants, and lawyers, and other people that "know a bit about IT" can present themselves as experts, equivalent to or better than the people that really are experts.

The ACS is controlled by that sort of agenda and they're desperate to push it through. The problem they face is

that the IT industry is a lot bigger than they are, and is placing increasing emphasis on genuine expertise. Mickey Mouse qualifications get exposed quickly. The ACS can do all the PR they like, and desperately try to suck up to Labor now it looks like they'll win, but they face increased irrelevancy.

Microsoft's interest is in sucking up to these organisations as part of its enterprise marketing, and also in increasing IT migration, which this is about. Microsoft itself will never require this certification for its own staff, except for people marketing to these segments.

"been there and done that" you obviously don't know what your talking about. A brownout is caused by a lack of power. It's the reason why we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on UPS's to protect computing equipment as unlike with a lack of power a server will be fine, with brownouts as the power typically troughs and spikes (which kill It equipment very quickly) asking such a question is not a stupid thing to do.

The problem with international certs is that they usually focus to heavily on the theory and not the prac. Like with any other certs the theory can be learn't, but after you have received the piece of paper you could still be crap at your job.

When I hire people what they are capable of weighs far higher than what certs they have. (Last person I hired the fact he had a cert didn't even come into play)

...you dont need brain surgeons to do 90% of I.T. projects

all you need is 1 smart programmer in the team, a good lead developer - the rest of the team can be average and the project will still get done ok

the days of challenging technical dev work have gone - most interesting stuff has been commoditised in open source projects

IMHO, the way forward for a career in I.T. is ironically by moving away from the technology into the domain knowledge

This program in Canada is a hopeless failure. Only about 1500 people have the Canadian ISP certification, which is only one in 200 or 300, and the certification is generally ignored.

Australian figures for the ACS equivalent would probably be worse.

Yet these power hungry dicks continue their plotting to control the IT workforce.