I do not want this to sound like I am pointing fingers.  You had asked
many questions of why HP end users should seek HP certification.  What
would it mean to a company if a person should have an HP certification.

You asked what kind of certification precedures would an HP end user
wish to have. what type of certification do "actual" CE's have that work
for HP? Why do they need certification for? how do they go about getting
HP "certified"? is their "experience/certification" simply based on a
college degree? why would it be difficult to allow HP end users to
attend some similiar type of training/certification? we, as HP end users
would like to at least have the same type of training/certification
available to us.

HP is really lagging in the training/support area because of the growing
deman for HP products.  I compliment HP in doing so well in the computer
market of today.  I think having "trained/certified" HP end users whom
have this certification can possibly help out the technical support
aspects to some degree.  Some type of listing can be distributed in the
HP world of who would like to be available for assisting other end
users.  I know there has to be listing of HP end users somewhere.  I
often get calls from users on the D640 printer. where are they getting
my name from?  Yes, it is nice to hire nice fresh college grads, but,
how does that compare to the many HP customer base who have 7-10 years of experience in the HP field?

I also understand that HP is allowing end users to purchase parts for
certain deks jet printers.  I also have noticed that HP is starting to
drop contract support on older equipment and older model printers.  This
is understandable due to the growing demand for better products.  But,
alot of HP end users still used and maintain these older products.  So,
in a way, we are forced to to upgrade our equipment because the older
equipment is being dropped from our contracts or use a 3rd party vendor
to do our repairs are not even trained/certified in the HP product.
And, when we do end up ordering the new products, we have to sit and
wait for the product to be shipped for us because the demand is so
great.  So, HP rushes out the new products and in turn, have problems
with the early models which causes habic(?) to the end users due to
mistakes in manufacturing.  With this in mind, if some of the HP end
users can get trained/certified in some hardware, we can purchase our
own part/products and repair our own equipment.

please take my comments into consideration.

-Chris-