APMG

The IT Skeptic hears on the grapevine that the ITIL training industry may be having a few meetings of its own at the itSMF UK conference next week. And the topics of conversation may bear on the continued competition between Examination Institutes (EIs).

Further to my recent post on Free ITIL, several people are still asking "Why?", so let me elaborate a little on why it should happen and why you should support the idea.

The online world is used to free content. In many minds, this has come to mean free as in free beer not free as in free speech, i.e. gratis not libre. This is unfortunate but not part of the discussion today. Here we are talking about free libre content. It is how the 21st Century world will work.

OGC has renewed the outsourcing contracts for TSO to publish ITIL books and APMG to accredit ITIL training. And if I have this right, TSO defends the copyright and APMG defends the trademarked brand. The renewal is for two years - it could have been renewed from one to five years. It just feels odd being part of a supposed professional community and this is all we hear. This must be what it was like being a resident of a medieval estate: the news filters quietly down from the castle long after all is done and dusted.

There is rising anger at the attitudes and tactics of OGC and APMG over ITIL and Prince2. Most people can't speak out because APMG hold them to ransom over their livelihood. But a few do.

I flushed out some interesting feedback by talking favourably about OGC's IP protection. ITIL depends on volunteers and it is a fragile arrangement. When those volunteers' first direct official contact ever with OGC or TSO or APMG is not a certificate of appreciation but rather a cease-and-desist letter from a lawyer, that does not contribute to good will. Nor does it create the impression that we're all in this together, creating a body of knowledge for the public good. (When are you ever going to say thank-you, OGC?)

There seems to be a little common sense filtering through with OGC's trademark enforcement. [Update: no there doesn't. Stories coming in of obviously silly threatening letters being sent to owners of products - mostly books - that have ITIL in the name. One of the tales is in the comments below.]

Continuing a series of reforms, APMG has released the ITIL exam statistics for the last three years.

[Updated 22/10/10 with more news, see end of this post]
[...and 23/10 with even more silliness from Peoplecert]
[...and so it goes on. Peoplecert seem totally incapable of understanding how copyright law operates.. how do they get to be an EI?]
[update 27/10: finally the content properly honours the original source, but it leaves us with two questions - see end of this post]

Not long ago the IT Skeptic told you about the appointment of the ninth ITIL Examination Institute (EI), Peoplecert, of Greece. Is this related to the ITSM-ITIL-PeopleCert website busily ripping off everyone else's web content without permission and using the trademarked ITIL swirl logo as their twitter picture? I hope an EI would have more respect for intellectual property. of course it can't be them because they are accredited by APMG and APMG audit their EIs so closely. Can it?

In an announcement last week, APMG have appointed a ninth Examination Institute. Readers will recall these are the companies that are licensed by APMG and in turn accredit all the 350+ training organisations delivering ITIL training. The EIs also administer the exams using standardised question content but their own tests and their own delivery systems.

For all those who have paid lots of money to be accredited ITIL V3 training organisations (ATOs), be aware that APMG-International the Examination institute (EI) - as compared to their parent APMG Group the official OGC accreditor of all EIs - is not directing any business your way if you accredited through another EI. You know who your friends are in the ITIL world.