Cross Company Certification?

Should there be a cross-company certification and how would that work? This thought came to me when I was teaching an Office Communications Server class recently. There were a lot of comparison questions between Microsoft and the “other company with green colored equipment”. Since there were so many questions, this led me to think that maybe there is some validity to a cross platform certification. Yes, CompTIA is out there and provides a “vendor-neutral” certification. But this isn’t so much vendor neutral as it is a cross-vendor application or certification. So is there a need for such a certification? I think that if there ever was a subject that could warrant such, this would be the one. Trying to make sense of Voice over IP is difficult when working with just one platform, trying to integrate two platforms makes life interesting indeed! In every class, there are always questions regarding how this piece from this company integrates with another piece from another company. There are not that many Voice experts out there and there are even fewer who know two distinct Voice platforms well. If you want a good field to specialize in – Voice will be the one (and besides, soon there will be a Microsoft Certified Master certification available) as there will only be an increased demand for Voice experts. How would this certification be based? Well, the individuals would need to be expert on and have detailed knowledge about a cross segment of knowledge between Microsoft, Cisco, Nortel and other voice product manufacturers and how they integrate/work with each other. That would be the theoretical knowledge test. There would also be a hands-on test something between the CCIE hands-on test and the new Microsoft testing format – something that eliminates any possibility of a “paper-voice” expert. The hands-on test would cover the deploying and integrating of various voice products – success being a “User” can make and receive calls and whatever features are deemed applicable. This is an interesting idea – don’t think it will ever see the light of day – but something to think about at least.