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Inactive Cisco CCIEs are growing at an 81% faster percentage growth rate than active Cisco CCIEs
Fri, 2/4/11 - 5:53am    View comments

Update - Received the following official response from Cisco:

"Cisco does not publicly disclose certification metrics. However, we can confirm that the numbers you state here are not accurate."

For more than a decade, Dual CCIE #18532 R&S/Security - George Morton, meticulously recorded for all CCIEs to review the growth of the worldwide Cisco CCIE count.

Well, Morton's meticulous counts riled Cisco so much that on May 25, 2010 Cisco finally made its famous worldwide CCIE statistics vanish!

So it was on June 2, 2010 that Morton published his final analysis of Cisco's worldwide CCIE count. However, keep in mind that Morton's analysis of Cisco's CCIE counts were religiously followed by Wall Street analysts which perhaps led to some awkward and/or embarrassing moments for Cisco CEO John Chambers.

Thankfully, Marc La Porte of the Netherlands has been manually keeping track of Cisco's CCIE statistics with his CCIE Hall of Fame website, which he last updated on February 1, 2011 - see the screenshot below:

So how did I arrive at the new CCIE percentage growth rates?

Well, please keep in mind that inactive CCIEs are included in the total of CCIEs, so when I used the February 1, 2011 screenshot as shown above, I deducted the growth of inactive CCIEs (39) from the total of CCIEs (9715), which then left the total of CCIEs at only 9676.

Deducting 9676 from the December 1, 2010 screenshot below which shows the total number of CCIEs to be only 9388 = 288. Dividing 288 by 9388 gives a total active CCIE percentage growth rate of +0.030677%.

I found the inactive CCIE percentage growth rate by taking the total number of inactive CCIEs (740) as shown in the February 2, 1011 screenshot above and then deducting the total number of inactive CCIEs (701) as shown in the December 1, 2010 screenshot below = 39. Dividing 39 by 701 gives a total inactive CCIE percentage growth rate of +0.055634%.

Subtracting:
0.055634% inactive CCIE percentage growth rate
0.030677% active CCIE percentage growth rate
___________
0.024957% total inactive CCIE percentage growth rate higher than the active CCIE rate.

Dividing 0.024957% by 0.030677% gives a total inactive CCIE percentage growth rate that is 81% higher than the total active CCIE percentage growth rate!

Related stories:

Cisco's copyright complaint killed Marc La Porte's CCIE Hall of Fame

January 2012 Cisco CCIE count

Updated worldwide CCIE count

This story is how the Cisco CCIE program was born - Stuart Biggs

View more CCIE Water Cooler Gossip.

What's your take, why do you think inactive Cisco CCIEs are growing at an 81% faster percentage growth rate than active Cisco CCIEs?

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