Portal Software, Inc. (Pink Sheets:PRSF), the premier global provider of billing and Revenue Management solutions for telecommunications and media markets, today introduced the Portal Certification Program. Available to Portal’s customers, system integrators and technology partners, the Portal Certification Program offers training and testing for professionals whose job function includes the installation, implementation and configuration of Portal’s billing and Revenue Management platform. Five-day preparation training courses for the Certification exams are now available through Portal Educational Services. Certification testing will commence in January 2006.
Portal’s customers will benefit from the certification program by ensuring that employees and system integrators managing or maintaining Portal solutions have the knowledge and skills to optimize their organizations’ investment in Portal’s platform and the services it supports. Modeled after successful certification programs of leading enterprise software companies, Portal’s Certification Program credentials are tied to specific versions of Portal’s Revenue Management solution (e.g., Portal 7) to ensure that the individual’s knowledge is current and directly applicable to their IT environment.
Portal will offer two levels of certification: Portal Specialist and Portal Professional. Individuals seeking certifications must complete and pass an examination (or series of examinations) appropriate for the level of certification being pursued. There are three Specialist Certifications available: Portal Server Specialist, Portal System Administrator, and Portal Pricing Specialist. Portal’s education curriculum provides comprehensive training for individuals to prepare for testing. Learning path courses for these job roles are available today from Portal Educational Services.
“Portal’s role-based learning paths enabled the key members of the THUS team to get exactly the training they needed as part of the Portal implementation,” said Mark Dunn, Corporate Program Manager at THUS, one of the UK’s leading network operators. “The training was concise, relevant and delivered to a high quality.”
Exams for the three Specialist-level certifications will be administered by Thomson Prometric, an independent testing company with offices located around the world. Portal Professional certification requires a final project-based exam that will be administered through one of Portal’s global education centers in London, Bangalore and Cupertino.
“Our partnership with Portal is a crucial step in elevating the importance of system integrator certification, which assesses the aptitude and talent needed to support and implement the Portal billing and Revenue Management platform,” said Alex Gray, Executive Director IT Client Services of Thomson Prometric. “As the leader in testing and assessment services, we are able to ensure global delivery of the Portal certification exam via 3000 Prometric testing centers for Portal customers, integrators and partners, as well as offering Thomson Prometric’s innovative Internet-based test for Portal’s employees, providing them with convenient, direct access over the Web.”
Portal’s product-based solution provides leading service providers the ability to support the generation, capture, collection and analysis for any service, any customer type, any payment method on any network. Portal’s certification program will ensure that there are always sufficient skilled individuals in the marketplace that can plan, manage and implement Portal solutions.
“Portal is focused on enabling our customers to achieve their most critical business goals by accelerating time-to-market of innovative services and billing packages,” said Bhaskar Gorti, senior vice president of Portal Software. “Our new training curriculum, paired with the certification testing will provide Portal’s customers and partners with tools to measure the knowledge and skills of their technical staff so that their implementation teams leverage the full breadth of Portal’s industry-leading technology.”
Portal’s certification program will be available beginning in January 2006. Additional information on the program and requirements is available on Portal’s website at www.portal.com/certification.