Microsoft: Flunked our test? Fear not, techies...

Microsoft knows all about second chances – just look at Windows 8.1 – and now it is giving techies who failed the Certified Professional exam the first time around another bite of the cherry.

The company this month has awarded an exclusive contract to testing centre Pearson Vue; it had previously worked exclusively with Prometric, and before that with both companies. It is dangling the promo for a free retake – dubbed "Second Shot" – until the end of May.

“Don’t miss the opportunity to have a guaranteed back-up plan,” a Microsoft spokesman shrieked, adding the techies that didn’t make the grade on the first outing has 30 days to sit the assessment again.

Exams included in the programme are Microsoft Certified Solutions Associate, Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert, Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer and Microsoft Specialist.

Only the Microsoft Technology Associate and Microsoft Office Specialist exams are not included in the scheme.

At around £100 a pop, and with hundreds of thousands of techies accredited as certified professionals, training is a huge revenue stream for the company.

The scheme was started in 2005 and is revisited every now and again when Microsoft wants to entice more techies to get back into the classroom.

The best drivers are generally considered to be those who passed their test on the second time of asking (ahem, this writer included) – El Chan is not sure if this is the case with Microsoft techies too.

For those who flunk Second Shot, there’s always a certain open-source community that seems to enjoy swelling its ranks. ®