You have to think about what you want to do, and about the long term. While the rest of the economy experienced a mild and short recession-- so mild that it is debatable whether it technically should have counted as a recession, the telecommunications sector experienced something much more serious. If I use the word "depression," someone will say that is not accurate, as you can't have a depression in one industry, or some such technicality. This condition will not last forever. No one is throwing away their computer and giving up internet access. We are moving toward more and more high speed internet access and wireless access, which means more business and more support work.
Cisco has just bought Linksys, a consumer networking equip company, which suggests that Cisco may soon move heavily into the mass market arena. As lower-cost Cisco consumer and SOHO devices proliferate, perhaps the trend will be for there to be a growing number of Cisco-related jobs, but at lower pay than we saw in the tech boom. I think the long-term future for people near the top of the Cisco knowledgebase pyramid is very good. Someone will have to teach all these lower-level support folks, and write books on how to use such and such Cisco consumer router or switch or firewall, in addition to doing all the corporate network design/install/troubleshooting work done now. Linux is very difficult to learn really well. True, CCIE lab equipment is expensive, but I think it may take less time for some people to become a CCIE than to get the kind of facility with Linux that the Linux-guru jobs require. Okay, maybe this is going to be true for only a very few people, but it might have been true for me. I mean, the UNIX command line syntax (-this, /that) often bears no relation to anything that can be used a mnemonic, while Cisco IOS is very much like plain English. I know I made a conscious decision to put away my various Unix platforms (FREEBSD, Red Hat Linux, Solaris) and concentrate on CCIE. Anyway, I love the Cisco material I am immersed in now. You will need to decide for yourself what you want to do, but if you decide based on the relative salaries offered right now, you could make the wrong decision. Tom Larus, CCIE #10,014 ""Mic shoeps"" wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Hopefully I'm not going to stir another whirpool here. > > Today I was surfing job sites and found out that where there are less than > dozen jobs available for CCIE in Silicon valley, there are more than 80 jobs > available for Linux engineers. Their initial salaries seem to be better than > CCIE nowaday. > We all understand that we take great pride in achieving CCIE. It is not only > the hardest network certifications to get, but also financial rewards used > to be excellent, too. > > No matter how much efforts we put in these CCIE certifications, our fates > are still being subject to the cruel law of supply and demand especially in > this time of war. > > Linux is not easy. There are many commands to remember. But it doesn't > require to invest thousands of dollars in routers and switches for training. > However their demands are higher than ever. On the other hand, the supply > for the CCIEs seems to surpass today's demand and for some serious time to > come. > > Some might say, you study CCIE because you love the networking. Alright, but > if the future salaries for CCIEs are going to be somewhere near MCSE level, > would you put such an effort to get CCIE certs and still pursuing the career > of Cisco? > > Where are we heading? Someone please enlighten us. Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=66695&t=66669 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
