Cisco pooh-poohs £99 Groupon training tempter

Vendor and authorised training partners unconvinced as online provider offers 96 per cent discount on courses for five engineering certifications

Cisco and members of its authorised learning channel have reacted with a degree of scepticism to news that training courses for some of the vendor's leading tech qualifications are being offered online for as little as £99.

An offer from independent training provider Careermatch appeared on the cost-saving website Groupon last week offering a quintet of Cisco training courses at a 96 per cent discount – reduced from £2,760 to just £99. The courses are intended to prepare techies to sit exams for the vendor's Voice, CCNP, CCENT, CCNA and CCNA Security qualifications.

Cisco's UK leader of partner and commercial sales Richard Roberts issued CRN with the following statement: "While Careermatch may offer training for Cisco certifications, the training itself is not ‘Cisco certified', or otherwise endorsed by Cisco."

A quick search of the Groupon archives reveals that this is not the first such offer, with Careermatch and a number of other training providers offering courses for qualifications from Cisco, Microsoft, CompTIA and others.

But Richard Eglon, marketing director for Cisco authorised Learning Partner Comms-care, claimed that this was the first time he had heard of a training firm outside of the authorised channel offering such eye-catchingly cut-price training on Groupon.

The Comms-care man espoused the virtues of choosing an authorised Learning Partner, pointing out that his firm receives all course material direct from Cisco and has also invested in on-site demo equipment.

"We have CCIE-level training guys that are actually engineers who have moved into training," he explained. "For us to get anywhere near that price just would not work. We give our courses to a maximum of six people."

CRN was awaiting a response from Careermatch at time of publication.

Look out in an upcoming issue of CRN for an in-depth look at the IT training provider marketplace, and what the pros and cons are of working with authorised and unauthorised providers.