'Visual Networking' - the killer app threatened by the skills shortage

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 09 January 2008 04:48

Opinion and Analysis

Bloch claimed that the skills shortage was already impacting business. "We have situations with the Government where they want a solution and we have the solution but it stops there because they simply don't have the people to implement it...To get people who can get across voice and IP and the associated technologies is getting very difficult. Put video over the top of its and it is going to become even more so."

For a decade Cisco has been making its own contribution to the general skills shortage through the Cisco Networking Academy. It develops and non-Cisco specific networking courses. Since its introduction into Australia some 62,000 people have been trained in around 250 academies established in colleges of further education and elsewhere.

Achieving the highest level qualification Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) is no mean feat. About 85 percent of those who take the course fail to graduate. According to Wikipedia, "less than three percent of Cisco certified individuals attain CCIE certification, and on average will spend thousands of dollars and 18 months studying before passing."

As if that were not a substantial barrier, networking as an industry has an image problem: when did you ever see a computer expert portrayed in a movie other than a nerdy geek?