THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA

Not yet, I'm doing the jumpstart training videos currently and plan to sit the exam early next year. Yes the Small Business competency is the prompt.

My team of 4 technicians are all doing the exam around December, we have just started the jump start training videos ourselves.

We are all doing it in part for the small business competency and also because we want to be more confident with Office 365 as a whole.

I am. I finished everything for the competency except exam 74-324. I got through half of the jump start videos but I think I'm going to take the exam sooner than later because of my workload. I'm concerned not passing in time before the $999 promotion for small business competency ends.

No and No.  I'm not planning to take the exam or attain the competency.  I WILL hang on to my SBSC as long as I can, of course...

I took the exam in September and did not pass.  The jump start videos are not enough to prepare you for the exam.  The test seemed to pull very random questions and you definitely should have hands-on experience.

A coworker has taken it three times and has not passed.  We purchased an Office 365 book administration book and it was not enough either.  Once again, he said he had very random and detailed questions that were not covered in the book or in the videos.  

I am starting to think this exam is not worth the time, effort and money.  I believe we are going to keep our Desktop, Midmarket and Server competencies and not pursue Small Business.  The sole focus seems to be Office 365 since that is the required exam.

Thank you for posting this.

As I have stated before, we have had two people trying to pass this exam since release (all missing by very slim margins).  We did attend the jump start and it was a nice intro but it won't get you half way through the exam.  None of the books available cover enough information from the Admin side of things.  I have read through most of them and skimmed the others.  Most of the required reading was under technet but it is a train wreck to try and find it all.  So far the expectations on knowledge from Exchange and Sharepoint has been way beyond what I would expect in the Small Business world.

Is anyone here doing custom hardware solutions?  Have you looked at any OEM exams?

I want to start with preparing for the competency in January.

Yesterday, we (our local community) were offered a 5-day-classroom-traing for preparing with a very reasonable price, so we can learn altogether!

We will also held a O365-workshop in December at a collegue`s office for that reason.

Greetings,

Rolf

I am planning on taking it in January as well as 2 other engineers from my company. Our company is a Gold partner in Mid Market and Silver in desktop, server Platform and Identity and Security. Microsoft just increased the Gold fee to $5,260 a year and quite honestly we use 5% of the program's features. I think I will save some money when renewal time comes and just be the new Small Business Competency and see if I can go cheap on the renewal. Sorry to rant, but charging a small business $5,260 a year to be a partner is really not fair; especially the way the current economy is going in my area, Las Vegas.

Joe Raby- Forgot to answer your question. We do custom hardware solutions for servers, desktops and notebooks. We have never taken one of the OEM exams; we see no benifit from it. Have you taken one?

Lyle Epstein

Kortek Solutions

1 man shop - no and no

I'm done paying microsoft loads of money for these certifications and titles and logos and have them change them or take them away with all kinds of benefits I've never used or even needed. Pinpoint and all the other web directories have never yielded a single call or lead from anyone in the years since I was an MCSE for NT 4.  And no client chose us based on our Microsoft gibberish titles or even asked about them.  It was more for the challenge of taking the test and pride amongst other consultants.

And amongst the other consultants I keep in touch with (most all are 1 man shops), none are playing along with microsoft's game anymore.

If you have taken the new 74-324 Exam and not passed it, please reach out to me and let me know about it. On my overview page: http://www.EricLigman.com I have a "Feedback" button where you can ping me. Please be sure to include your contact information so I know how to reach you in return.

Thank you,

Eric Ligman

Director, Customer & Partner Experience

Microsoft Corporation

Yes I plan to take the exam for the Small Business Competency. I take the exam in 2 days and will let you know the results.