Growth of the China CCIE count goes negative by -9

Is this a bad omen for Cisco? Why take Cisco's CCIE Security track, when it might be better to go for the CISSP?

By Brad Reese on Thu, 10/29/09 - 5:07pm.

Today George Morton - Dual CCIE #18532 Routing and Switching/Security, provided his analysis of Cisco's new worldwide CCIE count:

"I'm always surprised when Cisco announces the CCIE numbers. There's no rhyme nor reason that I can understand as to when they publish the numbers. The interesting thing is that this report shows about one month of activity and the big news is China.

"Since the last report about 32 days ago, China has had a decrease in its total number of CCIEs. Now it's important to remember if 5 pass and 6 are decertified then the net new CCIE number for the report is -1. In this monthly report the net new CCIE number for China is -9. With China leading the way for so many years this is a major shift."

CCIE Count Change by Country

Source: Dual CCIE #18532 George Morton

"Other than the big news that China dropped we continue to see Egypt every month in the top ten list of net new CCIEs. The net new CCIE numbers average around 3 net new CCIEs per day. That's a very significant drop where in the past the average has been from 8 to 10 net new CCIEs per day. Don’t know why, but it could be the new CCIE R/S test.

"About 35% of the net new were in Service Provider. At the current pace, Service Provider is the second most popular CCIE after R/S. Many newly minted CCIEs that I speak to often talk about sitting for the SP because of its extensive overlap with R/S."

CCIE Count Change by Region

Source: Dual CCIE #18532 George Morton

"As for Security, the track continues to weaken. I am disappointed that Cisco has not been able to position the CCIE Security program as a DoD or even as a security standard certification in the industry. Especially when considering that CompTIA Security+ is a qualification for some security DoD tracks, however, no Cisco Security certifications are.

"Why take Cisco's CCIE Security track, when it might be better to go for the CISSP?

"The CISSP costs less, its more generic, plus its required for more security posts. Just for fun, search on Monster.com for CISSP and look at the count vs. searching for CCIE Security, you'll see why CCIE Security is going to continue to slide."

September 2009 vs. October 2009 Worldwide CCIE Count Comparison:

Source: Dual CCIE #18532 George Morton

View more CCIE Water Cooler Gossip.

What's your take, is this a bad omen for Cisco?

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