So, I spoke to a few folks in CompTIA during Summit about this. In fact,
@Becky Mann even asked me directly as to what was the principal reason for keeping printed materials. I mentioned a lot of these things to her.
1) Offline access - As you stated *and* as someone pointed out on the TTT last night, without some kind of offline access to training materials, training within closed network environments like military facilities would be limited or not possible. Additionally, folks who are in low connectivity areas also would not have viable access to CM Perform.
But, as Gregory points out, it does open up opportunities (I would think) for book authors to continue to produce material. I'm quite certain that traditional publishers like Cengage, Pearson, Sybex, and others will be providing printed materials. It will be interesting to see if academic institutions go that route.
2) Profitability - As CompTIA has shifted to a for-profit model now, I suspect this will also drive those changes. The incorporation of LabSim really was the change catalyst for CertMaster. Personally, a way into my pocketbook would be adapting training material to mobile and making it more audibly accessible, as
@jsgoodrich_wmu pointed out. I used to be able to use screen readers and PDFs, but that's gone now.
Maybe at the end of the day, the only folks who are complaining about the more traditional training material types are us older ones who've been in the field and started their careers out with that hard printed book from Barnes and Noble. I know that CompTIA has put a lot of time and money to try and build CertMaster, but I also wonder if they are painting themselves into a corner.
Actually, I think the product team would appreciate feedback.
