I've had to get their certifications. They're just as much garbage as the rest of their offerings. The courses they provide are nothing but marketing material. They don't improve your understanding of the products at all.
I found out later that they use their certs as filters for resellers to help Microsoft identify which ones are serious players. What a waste of time and money.
> I found out later that they use their certs as filters for resellers to help Microsoft identify which ones are serious players.
If I understand what you are saying correctly, this is not exactly true.
The IT industry is a box-shifting industry, and therefore Microsoft, like all other vendors, differentiate their resellers primarily on dollar-volume.
So the REAL reason a Microsoft reseller is Gold is primarily because they have shifted more product than other resellers on lower tiers.
Sure, to actually get the Gold badge, you need to have X sales-reps who've passed the course and Y technicians who've passed that course. But bodies-with-certs are by comparison a very minor secondary criteria.
The key criteria is always that your company has sold $big_number per year. Your entire organisation can be hiring exclusively Microsoft certified people, but you ain't getting the badge unless you're shifting the product no matter how many certified people you have on staff.
And that is why Gold certified is meaningless. Because all it tells me as a customer is you've got good sales-reps on team.
I found out later that they use their certs as filters for resellers to help Microsoft identify which ones are serious players. What a waste of time and money.