Today in a post under the fold, the SharePoint team announced that the SharePoint certification was going to the next level. A
new Master Certification program which helps prove your *real* skills and depth. (You may have heard about this for SQL, Exchange, AD, etc...) For the SharePoint master program the prerequesites include both Configuring exams and both Dev Exams for WSS and SharePoint Server. Not only that, but prior experience in either SPS 2003 or CMS 2003 with infrastructure and custom development. That really narrows the field... Still interested in proving you know your stuff? How about $18,500USD on the table for a 3 week course and a board certification. Pretty wild stuff!
I remember doing a Windows 2000 MCSE from scratch for 10K which included essentially 4-6 weeks of MOC courses, so really from a training perspective this is really not a bad deal. I am anxious to hear people that survive the course and the board. I think I'll be hitting my manager up for it, when I find out who is teaching the courses and who exactly developed the courseware. :)
My only caveat for me is the dev part of this whole thing. I guess I need to spend less time preaching about not customizing and more time digging into the SDK... In my analysis of the SharePoint community and especially the MVPs, they either fall in the Dev camp or the Infra/IT camp. The only odd balls that hit both are too smart and work for MS. I don't know, I think using both sides of the brain is too hard, but maybe that's what we need to see. I'm anxious to see the Kimmos, Lucas, Watsons, Petrys and Bogue's of the world show us how easily this is done.
If you asked me I think we need SharePoint Dev Masters, Design Masters, and SharePoint IT Masters (the real Architects). What do I know? Prove me wrong.