JD Edwards certification woes

Andy Klee takes a stern look at JD Edwards certification:

I'm here to tell you that the JDE certification program is on life support. It barely exists. JDE employees cannot be certified, and neither can JDE clients. Only business partners are eligible to take certification exams. And for $1995 a year, any consulting firm can become a business partner, pass the exams, and have certified consultants...

...Here's the official word from Oracle:

Oracle currently does not have a JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Consultant Certification program. Oracle University does have an EBS Certification program, but has no plans for such a certification program for JDE E1 or JDE World.

However, for Oracle Partner Network members there is a JDE E1 role-based Champion Level assessment available. A description is located on the OPN Competency Center at https://competencycenter.oracle.com/opncc/home.cc.

Passing these assessment tests is part of the requirements (for partners) to upgrade or retain their partner level.

Oracle business partners use the exams to maintain or upgrade their partner status. The exams today are similar to the ones available in the 1990s.

Andy doesn't provide commentary on why this parlous state of affairs has arisen. I will.

• Certification is a money spinner
• JDE certification for Oracle partners provides yet another cash generative line item for its already bulging wallet
• Oracle certification is (almost) worthless. That's saying something given the debate some of us are having around SAP certification.
• JDE is being left to wither on the vine, even though there are thousands of happy customers.
• JDE customers are being milked for maintenance while development is (almost) non existent.

I wonder what Oracle/JDE customers think of this. Especially when they hear Oracle execs forecasting 50% net margins.