Speaking of NDAs not working out for corporations - it appears AT&T is trying to lock the barn door after the horse has escaped:
http://www.ajc.com/business/at-t-seeks-to-1383611.html

I was told Red Hat makes little/no money on the training and exams side of the business.

It does have a commercial interest in ensuring that their exams are well respected by industry, and when a prospective candidate says they have an RHCE, the employer can be sure they have achieved a certain level of general compentency, and not just prepped for the exam by practising a few questions.

Oh please, surely you don't really believe that. Corporations have multiple revenue streams and if you think training isn't an important one to tech companies you haven't been paying attention to what they charges folks to go to the classes.

Don't get me wrong. I believe the RHEL tests are superior to other certifications because they in fact make you do the work rather than parrot back canned responses. However, pretending RH is doing training/testing as some sort of loss leader rather than a profit center in and of itself is at best specious or naive and t worst indicative of a vested interest by an employee or stockholder to cast the company in the best light.

It reminds me of all the commercials you see where the company says "We're in business to serve you." If they really meant that they should file for tax exempt status as non-profit organizations. Businesses are in business to make money pure and simple. Trying to ascribe higher motives to what they do is pointless. The best we can hope is that the business culture is such that they make their money in a mostly ethical fashion.

My point was Red Hat DOES HAVE a commercial interest in ensuring that their exams are well respected by industry, but it doesn't make its money from it per se.

RH make their money from selling support contracts, not from training. Out of curiosity, I just had a quick look at their last quarterly reports (rather than relying on "what I was told"). The majority of their profit (93%) came from their annual support contracts. Only 6% came from training, exams and consultancy, but it drives the support sales.

Offer a well respected certificate, and it will drive sales of your product. Its called marketing. It might cost the company money, but they win overall.

Plenty of large companies do it. Take BMW. They make souped-up sports versions of their cars, which they sell at a loss. Why? Prestige. Aspiration. Brand image. It reflects well on the company and drives sales of their regular cars. Its all marketing.

Mike.

So if someone offered you 6% of a billion dollars you'd think it was chicken feed? Like I said before companies have multiple revenue streams but you shouldn't doubt their concern about making money in one stream even if it isn't the preponderance of their revenue. I don't think I ever said that training was the majority of their revenue - I simply challenged your suggestion that RH does training as some sort of public service rather than for a profit motive. I also never said I "read" anything about this. My comments are based on having worked in IT for more than 20 years and having dealt with many different tech companies. As soon as they decided something isn't making them enough money they drop it like a hot potato even if it forces them to abandon a whole class of customers. Sure they'll try to get those customers to convert to something else they're offering but they will NOT have consulted those customers before they made the decision. This isn't something unique to tech companies either. In a past life I was a Financial Controller and I saw this same kind of decision making in other industries.

Your comment about BMW is exactly what I was admonishing you not to do: Pretending training is offered as a loss leader. It is not - the moment tech companies decided they couldn't make money doing training they simply wouldn't do it. It seems to me you are being very disingenuous in you your comments. If Redhat was really serious about training at the level you suggest then they wouldn't risk possible impact to their reputation by farming out the training to other vendors rather than doing it themselves. They do this because they find it is cheaper for them to "certify" training centers and trainers and rake in the cash without having to deal with the expense of running such centers themselves.

Errr, at no point in this discussion did I say that.

I did say they offer the certificates primarily as a marketing tool rather than to generate profits in its own right. People aspire to be RHCE, or even RHCA. The biggest profits (with least effort) will still come from the service contracts. BTW, the 6% includes the consulting side, which will generate them a lot more income than training/certs ever will.

Repeating bogus information is pointless because each time I will repeat that I don't believe it for a minute.

It is NOT just a marketing thing for the rest of their business. It IS a profit center in and of itself.

If you think this is bogus, then fine. You obviously know best.

I'll stop feeding you now.