Some days ago Gerry O'Brien published on his official Microsoft Certification blog a summary of the planned Training Kits for Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5 Certifications and their current expected release dates (plus some news about Training Kits for SQL Server 2008).
My surprise was to see that in this list there's a planned Training Kit for WPF, a planned Training Kit for WCF but no planned Training Kits for Windows Workflow. Fortunately Microsoft has planned also an exam for this new technology (Exam 70-504: TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5, Windows Workflow Foundation Application Development) so why not having an official Training Kit?
Gerry was so kind to answer my request for the Windows Workflow Training Kits with these words:
Hi Stefano,
As stated in the posting, if it isn't listed there, then MS Press will not create one.
I don't work directly in MS Press so I can't provide the business reasons for the decision unfortunately. As the certification Product Planner I would like to see supporting study material for all my exams but there are many factors that affect that decision.
I'm curios to know what are these business reasons... Maybe MS Press thinks that the Training Kit for Windows Workflow will have less revenue ($$) then the other .NET 3.5 technologies Training Kits?
I don't agree on this decision and I hope that in the future something will change... Windows Workflow is an interesting technologies and his MCTS title needs an official Training Kit.
I hope that others in the community will leave feedbacks to MS on this direction...