Recent figures released for January 2008 to January 2009 suggest that ITIL Version 2 Foundation, Practitioner and Managers courses are still in strong demand almost two years after the release of ITIL Version 3.
When launched ITIL Version 3 promoted the fact that ITIL Version 2 disciplines had been absorbed into its end-to-end 'life-cycle' approach. The accompanying courses for ITIL Version 3 seem to offer limited value to the candidate and the organization once they return to work. On the contrary ITIL version 2 courses appear to provide the candidate with the opportunity to understand how the IT department functions and potentially identify improvements that can be made upon return to work.
Below are the statistics mentioned earlier for the ITIL version 2 and ITIL Version 3 courses taken between January 2008 to January 2009.
ITIL Version 2 Examinations taken
| FOUNDATION | PRACTITIONER | MANAGERS |
| 107850 | 10850 | 12000 |
ITIL Version 3 Examinations taken
| FOUNDATION | FOUNDATION BRIDGE | MANAGERS BRIDGE |
| 130850 | 16600 | 3400 |
For clarification purposes the ITIL version 2 Practitioners courses and exams are not in anyway similar to the ITIL Version 3 Foundation Bridge courses and exams and no comparisons should be made between the relevant columns in the tables above.
The Office of Government Commerce (OGC), the owners of ITIL based in the UK, we believe are working to provide the opportunity for members of the international ITIL community to feedback their thoughts and opinions regarding whether ITIL version 2 publications and qualifications should continue to be made available. When we have more information on this we will let you know. In the meantime why not share your thoughts and opinions with ITILnews by sending us your thoughts via the comments panel below.