NIIT gets Microsoft''s ''Excellence in CTEC Training'' award

NIIT, India's IT training and solutions company, has been conferred the 'Excellence in CTEC Training Award' by Microsoft. This is the highest award conferred on a 'certified technical education centre' partner by Microsoft
across Asia.

NIIT has been adjudged the best, on the basis of a host of parameters, from among more than 650 Certified Technical Education Centre sites in Asia. NIIT emerged as the best CTEC based on its strong nationwide infrastructure, faculty expertise and skills, and high satisfaction levels of post training support.

The award was presented to Arvind Thakur, president of NIIT Software Business by Nancy Lewis, general manager, Microsoft, at Asia Fusion'99 held in Hong Kong last week. Speaking on the occasion, Mr Thakur said, "NIIT's strategic partnership with Microsoft has grown significantly
since we became Microsoft's only premier education and
training partners in India in 1995 and have since trained over 25,000 Microsoft certified professionals through NIIT CTECs."

NIIT was the first independent courseware developer for
Microsoft and is currently engaged in developing an e-commerce curriculum for Microsoft at its offshore development facility in New Delhi. NIIT has already developed Microsoft Official Curriculum titles for the American software giant on VC++6.0, E-Commerce, MS Access, and Windows 2000 enabling CTECs worldwide
to train their students through learning material on Microsoft
technologies developed by NIIT.

"We have grown our partnership with Microsoft from being one of India's earliest users of Microsoft technologies in the mid-80s, to working with very early versions of virtually every Microsoft product in our software, education and R&D in the 90s. As 'real power users' of these leading technologies, we are proud to have created equally robust solutions and applications for customers and in-house use, often pushing the
technology to its very limits," Mr Thakur said.

CTEC is a high-end technology training program initiated by
Microsoft to ensure consistent and high quality training on Microsoft technologies worldwide and is structured to very high technical specifications. The purpose is to ensure the availability of trained professionals to the IT community.
The association of NIIT and Microsoft over the years reads like this:

• NIIT was the first independent courseware developer for Microsoft outside the US;
• NIIT's Microsoft OnLine Training site on NIIT NetVarsity is the only site from India that prepares software professionals on globally sought-after Microsoft technologies at a time and place of their choice;
• Of NIIT's 300-plus educational multimedia titles, over 120 relate to Microsoft technologies, which cover BackOffice technologies,Windows operating systems and Microsoft Office usage. These also include the Microsoft Official Curriculum titles;
• NIIT has the oldest and largest network of Microsoft
  certified technical education centres in India and includes centres in all Indian metropolitan cities, Dacca in Bangladesh and Atlanta in the US;
• NIIT is the first official Microsoft Certified Trainer eligible to certify faculty who can train in a CTEC;
• With over 650 MCSEs and MCSDs, NIIT has the highest number of trainers on its rolls;
• NIIT has produced the largest number of Microsoft certified professionals from India - over 25,000 so far. This constitutes more than half the MCPs qualifying from India;
• NIIT launched training programmes on Windows 95 on the day of the launch in four countries, the Windows 98 training was conducted in 13 countries simultaneously on launch day. In June 1999, NIIT worked hand in hand with Microsoft to offer training on Microsoft Office 2000 a full one week ahead of the product launch;