Microsoft looks to 'Elevate' California
Microsoft's year-old Elevate America program, which offers free technology training and certification, is coming to California.
The program was announced by Microsoft a year ago as the country was gripped by recession, with Washington state as the first government partner. Since then, other states have slowly been coming on board.
Seven states have already distributed training vouchers, while five are still in the process of issuing the vouchers, according to a map on Microsoft's Web site. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is set to detail California's participation in a Webcast due to begin at 10:15 a.m. PST.
A second component, offering Web-based tips on things like creating a resume or sending e-mail, has been up and running for all Americans since the program began.
Update 10:25 a.m. PST: At a press conference at Microsoft's Silicon Valley office in Mountain View, Calif., Schwarzenegger said that Microsoft has awarded 166,500 vouchers that will be good for technology training. The tech training will be helpful, he said, as the state grapples with 12.5 percent unemployment.
"We want to put people to work," he said. "So many people lost jobs in this economic downturn."
He then launched into a tirade on legislators in Sacramento for not doing enough to create jobs. "People deserve the security of a paycheck."
Schwarzenegger also praised another Microsoft program, the Elevate America veterans' program, which Microsoft announced earlier this week.
Update 10:30 a.m. PST: "Microsoft believes that technology can be an incredible catalyst for economic growth," Corporate Vice President Dan'l Lewin said, speaking after Schwarzenegger.
But Lewin also added that technology alone isn't enough, nor can either government or the private sector solve economic issues alone. "This requires effective public-private partnerships."
Microsoft's overall goal with Elevate America, Lewin said, remains to offer technology training to more than 2 million people over the life of the program.
Update 10:33 a.m. PST: The Webcast has ended.
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Why dont they just offer free training books that can be used in classrooms? Some of the certifications are a sham too. They're getting a little more difficult, and they should, but the recent 70-680 exam I took was still a little light in my opinion. Maybe with this program we'll have a ton of certified people that HR departments will consider instead of the true techie that really knows his stuff.
That myth died with the dot-bust. Too many paper tigers were (and still are) out there, at least too many to get employers to trust most certifications - especially common ones beginning with the letters "MC"
The tough ones like Cisco's series (which require practical tests in addition to 'paper' testing), okay... those still carry some weight on a resume'. Certs which are fairly obscure but respected (GSEC comes to mind) still command a premium. But the common ones (esp. in this age of cheat sheets and braindumps)? Only the easily-duped or the ignorant would even consider a cert as a plus, especially when compared against applicants who have provable real-world experience, a relevant degree, etc.
Helping developing countries is all good and fine. But there are a whole lot of talented IT people in this country in need of work. Companies keep saying there is not enough here but thats the same bull they've been peddling for years. The truth of the matter is that its cheaper to out source.
After all, it's far cheaper to have a near-literal hostage that you can pay nothing and overwork (and who won't complain either out of ignorance, or for fear of getting their visa revoked and being deported), than it is to negotiate salary and work conditions with someone who not only knows their rights, but knows full well what a decent wage actually is for the given position.
Has bugger-all to do with sending money overseas (at least directly), but has a lot to do with bringing someone in that doesn't know enough to negotiate, and thanks to the visa conditions, has no real position from which to negotiate once they get here.
"it's far cheaper to have a near-literal hostage that you can pay nothing and overwork".
I am sorry, but I used to be an H1-B holder, and what you say is just a series of common misconceptions:
(a) If you already hold H1-B, changing companies is very easy, your new company simply needs to notify DHS that you are changing companies. Therefore, you are not "hostage".
(b) Just to hire an H1-B, the company must demonstrate that it pays them at least the average wage for the position they occupy. This is the second reason why employees on H1-Bs are not underpaid. The first, and the main, reason is that they can easily switch jobs, and no company wants to see a good employee go.
(c) The "near-literal" part doesn't add much to your argument. I do not know how many people in the US are aware of this, but more than 50% of all Ph D degrees in this country go to international students. What visa do you think they apply for if they want to stay in the country? That's right, H1-B. And just to add to this, if you think that someone with an advanced degree (and you need one to get an H1-B) who managed to come from a different country and get a visa is "near-literal", than what can be said about those Americans who cannot compete with them for a job in the country where they grew up and in all probability, at least on average, had a lot more opportunities?
(d) If neither of these points makes sense to you, what's going to happen if H1-B program is abolished? If you think this will create a lot of jobs for US residents, you are very wrong. Instead, companies will simply send those jobs abroad. It will be easier for them to do that, because people abroad will not have a chance to make high wages in the US and will do the same job in their home country for much less. It will then become a lot more profitable to do it there.
With next-to-zero transition costs, if you cannot be better than someone else, somewhere, you are not making money, get used to it.
On another note, I've worked with quite a few MCSE's over the years and I can't really say that the certification has proved that they really know what they're doing. The certifications do need to be toughened up quite a bit. It's been my experience that the folks that are real techies are always a better bet than somebody with handful of certifications.
Look on the bright side of things...
I wonder just how much of that 12.5% unemployment is in the IT sector? And now by flooding it with another 166,500 people competing with the already large number of unemployed IT workers, how is this helping?
We need to increase the number of jobs available, not workers to fill them. We have too many people now for what few jobs are available.
Not enough jobs and essentially giving away free certifications doesn't look good to me especially in a field im getting certifications in.
(The sad part is, they used to have some pretty solid classes back in the NT4 days, even if the tests were drop-easy).
I am afraid that once you need someone else not to do something that makes a lot of sense for them for you to save your job, you have already lost it.
Should be Microsoft looks to elevate itself.
1. To get certified, all you only need to pass an exam, so yes, you can buy a book, learn from it, and then take the exam. Taking the exam in the US costs 125$ (you can Google this). It may be cheaper in poorer countries.
2. Getting certified will not help you much to find a job in the US. The whole point of certification is that it helps to commoditize a particular - and usually relatively simple - job function. Once you are certified, it shouldn't matter whether you are from the US or from India. Unlike in India, however, you cannot live for $200 a month in the US.
3. Also, the certification program is not charity, since you are certified as someone capable of using a particular set of mostly proprietary technologies controlled by MS and some of its partners. It would be unfair to call it completely useless, however, since it provides an option of learning something for free.
4. Bringing the program to California - probably the most IT-educated state - is likely to have a lot less effect that, say, bringing the same program to South Dakota. I think the choice of the state was dictated primarily by political reasons (there are many), and not actual need.
5. Finally, in response to the comment by @SixString. As he or she correctly noticed, certification doesn't mean more than it is: demonstrated ability to perform a particular limited job function at some point in the past. If you want to hire someone for a full time job in the US, looking at their list of certifications is not particularly helpful. Instead, you are more interested in whether they know what they are doing and whether they can perform a wide variety of functions. This is precisely the difference between IT jobs in the US and those that get outsourced.
The top talent, buy definition, is rare, whether in the US or abroad. This is why top IT companies want to increase H1-B caps: they want to be able to hire the top people, and some of the top people are not-so-surprisingly from outside the US. These top people in the US are NOT paid less than equivalent US employees, because once the person is in the US, there is a lot of competition between companies for that person (the government also has laws that prohibit companies to pay less, but those are almost irrelevant). If you simply think about it, it is a lot more paperwork to hire an H1-B, why would companies ever do that if they did have a choice to hire someone just as good but from the US?
Now, if you do not increase (or eliminate) H1-B cap, what are the consequences? Companies cannot hire the top talent and bring them to the US. Therefore, they either stop hiring top talent and become less competitive (something that no IT company that wants to survive will ever do) or they hire the same top talent to do the work abroad. The job still moves abroad, only because the person doing it is not in the US, they do not pay taxes or do any of their consumption in the US. They simply spend their money elsewhere.
One needs to understand that it in the long run, being born in country X, does not automatically entitles you to have better standard of living. It is being better educated and more skillful that does. It is simply that historically people in the US had better chances of getting good education than people elsewhere. Unfortunately for this country, this is changing, and if you want to reverse the process, you need more better educated people no matter where they come from, not less.
But if the company wants us to use their products i would like to see them issue free versions of Azure, Office, Visual Studio and stuff to College going students and train them. They should primarily focus on college going grads and then work force of the nation.
- by pw1y March 10, 2010 2:40 PM PST
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