Microsoft Replacing SharePoint Dev Certifications with Office 365

Last week I wrote a blog post about the fact that Microsoft is retiring SharePoint MCSD developer exams. The article was pretty popular with over 1000 shares on social media and 4000 views in just two days. Microsoft Learning decided to answer the confusion in a follow up blog post, in which we learned that the SharePoint Dev exams are going away, while an Office 365 app exam is coming in! Here is the quote from MS Learning:

In the area of Office (including SharePoint) app development, there is a growing interest in Office365 apps and we are adjusting the certification path accordingly. As the existing MCSD: SharePoint developer path relies heavily on Web Application development skills, we are moving to a model where individuals would earn their MCSD: Web Applications credential, and, then, choose to specialize in Office365 app development with a single, new Specialist exam. This new exam is currently under development and more details will be shared once available.

Before, in order to get the MCSD: SharePoint Certification we had to pass 4 exams:

• 70-480: Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3
• 70-486: Developing ASP.NET MVC Web Applications
• 70-488: Developing Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 Core Solutions
• 70-489: Developing Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 Advanced Solutions

As you see, we had two general “Web Development” certifications, and two specific to SharePoint 2013. According to the MS Learning  blog post, I am guessing the new path in order to get certified for SharePoint / Office 365 would look something like:

• 70-480: Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3
• 70-486: Developing ASP.NET MVC Web Applications
• 70-487: Developing Microsoft Azure and Web Services
• 70-xxx: Developing apps for Office 365 (Just a guess on name)
  

The 480/486/487 exams would give you the MCSD: Web Applications, while the new Developing apps for Office 365 will give you a MCS: Office 365, and maybe a MCSD: Office 365 apps certification?

My Personal opinion is that a Developing apps for Office 365 specialist exam is a great idea, because there is nothing currently to certify users for that, however killing all certification for On-Premises SharePoint development is an awful one. I know that we can deploy apps on SharePoint 2013 and 2016, but no one really does it. More than 95% of my customers only do full trust farm solutions in their on-prem environment.  Furthermore, according to the latest numbers released by Jeff Tepper in November 2015, 60% of SharePoint licenses are On-Premises … so about 96 Million Users.

What do you think about this new certification path? Let me know in the comments!

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