Would be ok if their exams were improving then I wouldn't mind paying extra. I thought the sim based exams were a step in the right direction so was shocked when they pulled it soon after I sat the AD exam. I still think MS have watered down the MCITP cert too much.

Seems like a bad move, if its such a loss leader, why so many certification tracks and exams ?

Most new 'improvements' seem marketing related and largely serve MS's own interests, not those of their students.

Also not best economy to make a price hike in.

Why do they still insist on talking about price rises for MCAD and MCSD tracks, thought these were pretty much defunct ?

Stop the bus, I'm getting off...

All I can say is I'm glad I'm nearly done with MS exams. Got 2-3 more paid ones to do and then that is it.

Does anyone want to enlighten me as to the new prices. I'm at work and for some reason I have to install silverlight to use their "tool" to tell me what the price hike is.

UK is £99

Whilst I had no issues I did read that a lot of people had problems with the exam crashing. Microsoft need to sort these issues out and move the exams towards sims IMHO. It was pretty poor of Microsoft to not get this right in the first place with all their resources.

Thanks.
Mmm. Not really a lof more cash but percentagewise it's a big hike.

MS ARE working towards better, more robust and harder to cheat at exams
they ARE working on making SIM exams the norm, not the exception, but this is expensive, and it requires dedication from the exam delivery company as well, who need equipment and hardware to maintain this

personally a rise of that little after 10 years of the costs not changing (yes, my NT4 exams cost the same as my 2k8 exams, and I can assure you many of the 2k3 and early 2k8 exams were much tougher) is no big deal, really, if this had been in line with inflation what do you think we would be paying
they have my support, and my cash, and lets hope to see the continue to drive tougher exam policies wherever possible, and lets see those sims come back

Most of the profit goes to the cert vendors, thats why the equipment in test centres is often like a third world internet cafe.
If the system sucks, its because it was designed to suck, its because the primary motivation is profit, short or long term (marketing).

Also far more people taking cert exams nowthan in NT4 days, so administration costs per exam could well have gone down.

Sure price rise is less than general inflation over that period, but electronically administered exams in a growing market aren't really the same as say delivering a physical commodity...

The price rise for me means less chance of taking MS exams due to the fact I have to pay for them myself, it's great when your employer pays for them, however I have paid for everything myself, equipment, study materials and exam costs..

So it means my certification path and progression will become an even slower process

I have to agree this price hike does suck, due to the economy and getting laid off from a really good paying job and having to accept a job that pays a good deal less it's really hard for me to budget the money to take exams as it is and have the possibility of failing (at least there is Second Shot) but with the price increase it just makes it that much harder.

Oh well, just have to really tighten the belt and start eatting cheap ramen for a couple meals a day to save money for the exams.

GW

Compare them to Cisco/CompTIA/LDI exams, and they'll suddenly appear very cheap indeed!

Meh, £11, just think how much money you've spent on lab equipment and books, £11 is no deal breaker for me.

The price of everything is going up.
Mars bars cost more than they used to, without any improvement in their size or quality.
On the other hand, I've worked with the MS exam prep team, and they do put a lot of effort into developing new material. Somone has to pay for it.

Having said that, I'm not planning any MS certs in the near future (unless paid for by my employer), so I'm not really bothered.

Well theres now no welcome pack, no certificate, tie pin, wallet card, etc. So it is just like a shrinking mars bar.

If you want something closer to what you used to get, you need to send an extra 6 pounds to Microsoft and ask for the paper cert.

So thats a rise of 17 pounds or around 19 percent.

Sticking £88 into an inflation calculator for 2001 shows me that they would cost £109.12 today if they'd kept up with inflation. Not bad really, even if you fork out for the extras you still come in under the rate of inflation, and not having inflation added for the past 10 years means we've had quite a bargain up until now.
Not that I like the increase, but who does like having to pay more?