My suggestion is that CRM training materials should be free for anyone to download.
Partners are expected to purchase a Microsoft Dynamics Partner Foundation or Advantage Service Plan in order to access several benefits including access to the Dynamics CRM 4.0 and 2011 training guides.
The Dynamics service plans are most popular with larger partners who are committed to Dynamics CRM. The service plans are less popular with new and small partners who are still building their committment.
This means that the CRM professionals who need the most training (those who work for new and smaller partners) do not have access to training material, while those who are most likely to be certified already (those who work for Silver and Gold CRM certified partners) do have access to the training.
Well-training, certified CRM professionals perform better CRM implementations. It's in everyone's interests -- Microsoft, partners and customers -- to ensure that Microsoft Dynamics CRM has more well-training, certified CRM professionals available than competing systems. Microsoft will have happier customers, larger market share and greater software licensing revenues by providing free training materials to its customers and partners than it will by attempting to turn training requirements into a source of revenue.
Salesforce.com, for example, provide administrator training guides at no charge for anyone to download from their website: http://www.salesforce.com/assets/pdf/misc/SG_CertifiedAdmin.pdf.
The Microsoft Dynamics CRM 3.0 training course materials were free for any customer or partner to download and study. However, the policy changed with the release of CRM 4.0 and hasn't reverted with the release of CRM 2011. It should!
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Thank you for your feedback. We will consider this in our roadmap.
Sincerely,
Srikumar Nair
PM, Microsoft