Consider the developments within IT
It can be a scary prospect being an IT admin at the moment, especially in the SME. The buzz in the industry is all about cloud computing and how the role of the IT guy is slowly becoming redundant in favor of hosted services. All of the knowledge you have built up in regards to managing your servers is passed on to a faceless provider in the sky. However, even though the onslaught of hosted services has been rapid, there is still plenty of work at the local level to be done. So if you are concerned with the relevancy of Microsoft accreditations and their value in the future consider what the cloud has to offer and how you can fit in.
In regards to the day-to-day running of your network, you will still need your desktop support. If you imagine that your company moved to hosted services tomorrow would you be out on your ear? The likely answer is no. The only difference is that the servers are not on your site but on someone else’syour company’s purchasing manager is still no more aware as to why his printer isn’t working or why he isn’t receiving e-mail than he was yesterdayso desktop support is still needed.
Many hosting providers give customers a portal or user interface where they can perform the required network administration. Although these may not always be Microsoft technologies, the back-end configuration that it is applied on often is. In the case of some providers who use Microsoft Exchange server 2010 for their hosted exchange (for example), offer a version of the Exchange management console for user administration. There is a number of emerging Microsoft releases built with the cloud in mind but with the user at the helm, such as SharePoint 2010 for document collaboration or Microsoft Office 360 for cloud-based Office documents. Administration of these growing cloud-based technologies is still required. In short, hosted services do not spell the end for pursuing Microsoft accreditation; the core knowledge gained is still going to be relevant for some time yet, even if your network does go hosted, so don’t let that put you off.