Also, how is the job market for RMS certification? Or do I need to add some more certification to get a decent job as an implementer? QUESTION POSED ON: 07 NOV 2005
QUESTION ANSWERED BY: Ed Tittel While indeed the Microsoft Retail Management System is a member of that company's business solutions products and they do offer training on the platform, it's not really the subject of an out-and-out certification per se. I also see different prices for the online training than what you mention in your posting -- namely $149 U.S. per person for RMS HQ and $298 U.S. per person for RMS Store operations (for more info, please visit Microsoft's RMS page).

The best way to measure potential benefits for attaining competency in RMS that I can think of is to look for its mention in job postings. So I hied myself off to Dice, Hotjobs and CareerBuilder to see if it was mentioned anywhere. Lots of hits for other expansions of the RMS acronym, but nothing for Microsoft Retail Management System. My gut feeling is that you're going to have to limit any job searches to Microsoft partners to up the chances of finding a position that uses this skill set. Frankly, unless you can find more by way of opportunities by delving into that market sector, you'd be smart to conclude that ROI is sufficiently questionable to hold off investing until you get wind of some opportunities that could at least potentially offset the time, effort and expense involved in training up on this platform.

OTOH, you could always contact Microsoft and ask them for more information about who's using the technology, which partners have picked up on it and so forth, to get a better sense of the size and opportunities that inhere to this market. But a quick, superficial analysis makes it look pretty darn doubtful.

Good thing you asked, eh? Good luck with your further searching and decision making.

-- Ed