3/12/2002 -- Niamh Fiona O'Byrne, manager of Macromedia's certification program, told CertCities.com in an interview on Friday that the company's new Flash Designer certification will debut April 30.

This will be the last of three new titles Macromedia has introduced in the past six months. The company's Flash Developer and Dreamweaver Developer certs debuted last fall.

According to O'Byrne, the company is currently looking for candidates to take the beta version of the Flash exam. The beta will be offered online. Those who participate will recieve a discounted voucher for the final version. Anyone interested in participating should e-mail O'Byrne directly at .

Macromedia has made some major changes to its certification program over the past few months. Since acquiring Allaire's Cold Fusion and Web Designer titles last year, it has updated Cold Fusion to version 5.0 and retired the Web Designer title in order to replace it with the product-specific designations mentioned above. It has also recruited an outside network of subject matter experts (SMEs) to help with exam development, O'Byrne said.

The upcoming Flash title will be the first the company is offering specifically to designers.

All of the company's titles require candidates to pass one exam, which are available at Vue testing centers worldwide. Training is optional. To find out more about Macromedia's certification program, click here. -B.N.