The warning signs were there to be read, in large letters, at the last NT show -- where it seemed more than half the exhibitors were offering training to Microsoft Certified System Engineer (MCSE) level. Suddenly, the world is flooded with "qualified" system engineers, and they are causing mahem.

And as this year goes by, the situation will quite possibly get worse, because this is going to be a challenging year for PC support and IT staff.

The problem seems to be that there is such an acute shortage of experienced or expert technical staff. There is, as one large corporate IT boss told me, "no substitute for experience," and experience takes time. This year, with the release of Windows 2000, there is a whole new ball-game to learn, and almost nobody to get experience from.

I honestly believe that Windows 2000 is Microsoft's best operating system ever. I've had my five cents on things that Microsoft has, blatantly, got wrong about it. I think its strategy for promoting the Active Directory is baffling, if not plain stupid, but the basic workstation installation simply eats anything that came before it -- including any version of OS/2 and several flavours of Unix.

Microsoft doesn't see this as a problem. Find out what approach it will take by clicking to go to the next page...

Microsoft's own approach to this, understandably, is that in a short time, these newcomers will be experienced: so what's the problem? And it is certainly the case that there's a dreadful shortage of either trained, or experienced, IT staff right now -- so any company like Microsoft which is prepared to sponsor and support these training companies who "cram" non-IT staff for the exam, will reap rich rewards.

But it's one thing to stand up and say -- as I'm happy to say -- that Win2K will solve a lot of support problems; it's quite another matter to know HOW it solves those problems. And during the period of changeover from NT to Win2K, you either know a lot about the background to computers, and can work it out, or you will be struggling through the Knowledge Base on a congested Web site, looking for solutions to problems that haven't been solved.

That's OK, if you're an IT expert. The problem with all the new generation of "paper MCSE" staff is that they are mostly utterly non-technical. "I've had my doubts about MCSE qualifications, ever since a salesman friend of mine passed the exam in a couple of weeks," commented one IT manager. "He's not even remotely technical -- I used to have trouble just describing to him the difference between a Jaz drive and a hard disk -- and he'd been in the business 20 years."

Another consultant told me: "We love these newcomers. As consultants, we see them get appointed by our clients. They know just enough to really cabbage the client's IT setup, and we get to charge consulting fees, to put stuff right that should never have gone wrong. We call them 'Must Consult Someone Experienced'."

The problem, say senior managers, is that too few personnel or Human Resources people understand the importance of experience, and tend to be over-impressed by paper qualifications. "We're seeing paper MCSEs getting into interviews which are closed to other, more experienced people with hands-on knowledge." Another hirer of IT staff said: "The contract agencies are being encouraged to put forward people with little intrinsic aptitude because they get a higher 'cut' of a qualified MCSE salary, than people who actually know what they are doing."

In a year's time, no doubt, things will be rosy; in much the same way that Novell's Certified Netware Engineer qualification started out ridiculed by employers, but became a byword for how training should be encouraged, it's probable that by the time Windows 2000 is established in the market, there will be plenty of good, qualified and experienced systems engineers to manage networks.

But for the next few months, there are going to be more than the usual number of screwups, caused by well-intentioned people doing things that should work -- on paper -- but actually cause serious problems at all levels.

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