Matt, as you stated, the exams have no real standing. They are Partner based exams and have no bearning on IT Certifications as a whole. You can find all of Cisco's online testing >>here<< if you want to keep an eye on it, but I believe that your VUE contact's information is speculative, at best, and that Cisco would make a public announcement if they ever decided to make a move like that.

I'm not too familiar with Cisco's Partner Program, but I intend to be. I will see if I can pull some strings very soon to get more information out about the potential problems with a program like this. Maybe Cisco has already covered all this prior to the launch of the program, but one downside I see to allowing partners test online is that they can "scam" potential employees into taking exams for them. All the employer needs to do is create profiles for the potential employees, provide the login credentials to those employees, let them take the tests (as employees of the company) and have them take the tests. The employee doesn't have to pay for the exams ($62 USD) and they don't have to hire the employees. My question is, does the employer get credit for having the exam taken? This is something that we will be looking into.

Thanks again Matt, Best Regards,

Robert Williams; Taylor Ripley
CertGuard, Inc.
www.CertGuard.com
http://www.networkworld.com/community/user/4864