Tech Goes Boom

Apple Training Lag

I've got a problem with Apple's customer training. I'll soon be taking their System Administration Using Mac OS X Server 10.3 class. This is the big daddy of all Apple server classes and is the server part of the Apple Certified System Administrator certification. So what's the problem?

The first class given is on 7/12/04. For those not keeping track, 10.3 was released 10/24/03. That's almost 9 months to create the training materials for this course and arrange the courses. 9 months from release that is. They probably had preliminary training materials in development before the release. Why does this take so long? I know there's a lot of time and effort going into this, but to offer some perspective, Steve Jobs will be demonstrating 10.4 before this course even begins. And if last year was any indication, 10.4 could be released just 2 months after this class is available. That's just silly.

If Apple is going to be releasing major new OS updates every year, they need to have their training teams working at the same pace as their developers. In this case, I can see a 3 month lag as about the maximum. When you're almost 9 months behind releases, people don't want to pay for classes or certifications. They will want to wait until the classes for the currently released operating system are available. I know. It was for this same reason I didn't take the 10.1 certs. Add to this training budgets that are allocated at the beginning of the year (for a class that won't be available until July), or late the year before, and the fact that most people are taking these classes to get into the nitty gritty of Mac OS X that they can't really get anywhere else. They don't want to wait 9 months for this information. By that time, the information is already out.

This class costs $2,625 to the public. That's $2,625 for information that will need to be updated in 2 months, and another cert taken. When your product costs this much, you should take it more seriously.

In addition to all of this, I want to eventually become a trainer for these courses. As someone who would be selling these courses to potential customers, I think I would have a hard time making that sale.

Apple, you're trying to take on the enterprise for real now. To do that, you're going to have to get your training act together.