Remember back in the day (the late 90s) when the technical certification craze was going on? At one point I had an MSCE, MCDBA, MCT, A+, CCNA, Compaq ACE, and a few others that I can’t even remember. Many of those certs are still around, I just don’t think as much attention is paid to them as was in the past.

A set of certifications that I will pay attention to, however, are the ones coming out of the newly launched BlackBerry Certification Program that was just announced today.

Research In Motion today announced a new BlackBerry® Certification Program that will extend a reliable, comprehensive certification testing service in support of the BlackBerry® wireless platform. The new BlackBerry Certification Program is intended to provide an empirical means of measuring and validating the real world skills and knowledge used in planning, administering and supporting BlackBerry product deployments.

We’ve listed the BlackBerry certifications that you will be able to get this year and next year after the jump…


Certifications planned for availability in 2008 include:

  • BlackBerry® Certified System Administrator – for technical professionals who install, configure and manage the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution – available May 13
  • BlackBerry® Certified Server Support Specialist – for technical specialists supporting BlackBerry Enterprise Server and its associated components – available Fall 2008
  • BlackBerry® Certified Support Specialist – for specialists who support BlackBerry smartphone users in a BlackBerry® Internet Service or BlackBerry Enterprise Server environment – available Fall 2008
  • BlackBerry® Certified Solution Designer – for technical professionals who provide pre- and post-sales technical consulting services to organizations that have deployed the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution – available Fall 2008

Additional certifications for individuals planned to be available in 2009 include BlackBerry® Certified Enterprise Application Developer, BlackBerry® Certified Trainer, BlackBerry® Sales Expert and BlackBerry® Expert User. Organizational certifications planned for 2009 include BlackBerry® Certified Reseller and BlackBerry® Certified Training Center.

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